Rise of the Tau'ri Revised
by cast2007
Summary: After exiting the Supergate and destroying Allied Forces at the Battle of P3Y-229, the Ori attack Earth, revealing the Stargate Program and everything with it Public. Earth is now at war. Post Season 9. AU as of Season 10. Rewrite of Rise of the Tau'ri
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I do not own Stargate SG-1 all intellectual properties belong to their respective owners. Original Characters are mine. All references to real life Military Personnel are due to coincidence only.

After much thought, I've decided to rewrite Rise of the Tau'ri. I started the fic as a Junior in High School and I wasn't too happy with the planned plot. Now that I'm a Sophomore in College, I think that I can do a better job. I also wanted to make this story grittier, grimmer and more realistic as it seemed like the story was too happy and go lucky. For those of you new to the series, this story is AU as of Season Nine.

I've changed the location of my website. Utah Jak, the author of Chains of the Kindred and I have decided to make a full-fledged Science Fiction Forum. The link to the site is on my Profile. Feel free to register, comment and post your own content.

Rise of the Tau'ri

Timeline

2006

After overrunning allied forces assembled at P3Y-229, three of the six Ori Battlecruisers that came out of the Supergate launch an all out attack on Earth in what is now known as the First Battle of Sol. The Ori are repelled but at the cost of the remaining United States Space Forces, thirty Asgard warships and numerous conventional forces resulting in over 60 million deaths.

The United States, and the rest of the IOA knowing that the metaphorical cat is out of the bag, reveals the Stargate program to the public. After a couple months of fierce debate, the Terran Federal Republic a united one-world government is formed in response with Henry Hayes selected as its first President for a term of eight years. Jonathan O'Neill is chosen as the first Chairman of the Terran Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The first and foremost priority of the Terran Federal Republic is to recoup the losses at the First Battle of Sol. In response, the Terran Federal Republic launches a massive military buildup aiming to integrate technologies discovered and developed by the SGC into 'regular' units. The National Militaries are merged into the Terran Armed Forces under the command of the Ministry of Defense. With a new focus in mind, the branches are reorganized somewhat. The Army remains the main ground component and the Marine Corps are still the main rapid reaction force and lead assault component. To keep the Navy and the Air Force from feuding over who got control over space warfare the Minister of Defense, George Hammond decides to split the responsibility between the two Branches. The Air Force, renamed the Space Force is responsible for all fixed defenses while the Navy is in charge of all mobile units. Construction of an orbital infrastructure begins immediately.

To assure their allies, especially the Jaffa that they are doing their part, the Terran Federal Republic deploys the majority of its Special Forces units in order to conduct asymmetric warfare operations against the Ori as well as start resistance cells in Ori Territory. The Terrans begin to export its numerous amount of small arms such as the AK-47 to RPG-7 to arm resistance groups. The Asgard, accustomed to working behind the scenes use their Beliskner cruisers to insert them quickly and without notice.

2007

The Military buildup continues. While there are millions now under arms, the vast majority of them are still in training and do not possess the necessary equipment to go to war. At this time, the only equipment available are hastily upgraded pre-War platforms that while are much better than their predecessors are still limited by their now obsolete designs. New designs derived from advanced Asgard and Tok'ra technology such as the MBT-1 Wittmann Main Battle Tank and the IFV-1 Smith are still in the prototype phase and will not begin mass production until 2008 at the earliest. The only large formation near combat readiness is the Terran 8th Army which has the majority of the upgraded equipment and is currently in Germany training and learning how to use their new gear in the best manner. In space the construction of upgraded variants of the BC-304 Battlecruiser are begun and development of new ship classes is in progress.

The Ori continue their conquest of the Milky Way. However Terran Special Forces units supported by local inhabitants wreck havoc behind enemy lines in hit and run attacks on the Ori logistics system.

Dock Five, New Portsmouth Fleet Yards, LaGrange Point One, Sol System, Terran Federal Republic

January 11th, 2008

The large and cumbersome shuttle slowly but surely lumbered through the celestial void, its destination, a large 400 meter long Spacedock floating weightlessly in orbit like a rag doll on the vast ocean of stars, one of many in the local area, known to astronomers as LaGrange Point One. While the shuttle was slow and ungainly, lacking the flashiness or sex appeal of a warship, it was perfect for its intended purpose, ferrying personnel, supplies and raw material from the Space Stations attached to the top of the massive Space Elevators based on Earth to its orbital shipyards.

Inside the Officer's Compartment, Captain Terrence Somerville sat in one of the seats, staring through the forward view port, his eyes focused on the massive manmade object inside that dock, which also known to any trained eye as a BC-304 Block II Battlecruiser. The shuttle was close enough that Somerville could see suited workers along with large Space Construction Vehicles finishing up last minute tasks that were to be done before the ship was to be fully complete.

At 350 meters long, the 20 _Daedalus_-class BC-304 Block II Battlecruisers under construction at New Portsmouth Fleet Yards were the largest ships to be commissioned by the Navy. Although other than the _Daedalus_, the sole remaining BC-304 Block I and five _Osprey_-class Corvettes fresh off the yards from Bath Iron Works, they were the _only_ ships that the Navy had at the moment as the _Korolev_ and the _Odyssey_ were both lost at the Battle of P3Y-229.

Despite the fact that the Block IIs were similar in appearance to the older Block Is they were completely different from one another.

First, their intended roles were not the same. The Block I was designed to be a multi-mission capable, hybrid all in one cruiser-carrier-scout ship that could any task asked of it. At the time, Earth had no more than three warships at any given time, making it essential for every ship in its possession to be able to perform any task asked of it, oftentimes alone and without any support. The Block II on the other hand was designed for a much narrower focus with only one mission at mind, to wreck utter and complete havoc on the enemy by conducting asymmetric warfare behind enemy lines.

The armaments of the ships also differed, while the Block I was armed with only rail guns and guided missiles; the Block II had a much more potent armament. In exchange for giving up the majority of its rail guns, the Block II was able to mount Asgard designed energy weapons in their place, however the Block II still had some rail guns for anti aircraft purposes and for point defense. While the number of missiles stayed the same, the way that they were carried and fired was different. Instead of relying on a vertical launch system, like the Block I, the Block II opted to use twelve horizontal tube launchers, five at the fore, two at the port, two at the starboard, and three aft, similar to a torpedo tube on an aquatic submarine as its method of firing its Mark VIII Missiles.

Whereas a Vertical Launch System allowed a ship to fire more of its weapons in a shorter time period, reloading them was not only complicated but personnel intensive as well. Because of this, reloading the Vertical Launch System was done at the ship's home base, it meant that whatever armament a ship left its base with was the only armament that it could use until it could return to base, as replenishment in the field was out of the question. With the Block IIs intended to be behind enemy lines for months if not years, relying on supply ships to rearm and to refill its supplies, a Vertical Launch System was not what the Block II needed. Tube launchers on the other hand while they fired missiles at a slower rate could be reloaded and maintained in the field without too much hassle. An added benefit to this was that tube launchers took up less space than a vertical launch system, allowing for more missiles to be stored. The purpose of the Block II was to sneak around enemy lines, not to be a conventional warship. If it did get in a prolonged fight, its energy weapons were more than capable engaging the enemy as the Block II's primary weapons system. Unlike the Mark VIIIs, whose numbers were limited, the Block II's energy weapons could fire a near infinite amount of shots, provided that the reactor and its emitters were functional.

The starboard fighter bay was removed as well. Historically vessels that were designed to be both a battleship and a carrier failed miserably at both. The Navy opted to remove its fighter capability in favor using the newly freed up space for more weapons, thicker armor and more storage capacity to increase the amount of time it could operate between replenishments. The port fighter bay was kept although it was significantly downsized. Although it could house four F-302s, half of what the Block I's equivalent could carry, its main purpose was not to carry fighters but to house two EADS DS-1 Cormorant dropships that facilitate the insertion and extraction of Special Operations personnel when transporters could not be used.

A significant amount of attention was placed on electronic countermeasures or ECM for short. While the Block II was more heavily armed and capable, it wasn't designed to take on the entire Ori Fleet. The Block II was supposed to spend the majority of its time unseen and unnoticed, only revealing itself when the time was right. In order to be successful, it had to pick its fights very carefully, only engaging the enemy when it could win swiftly and effectively and avoiding all other conflicts. To facilitate this, the Block IIs had an Asgard modified cloaking device of Goa'uld origin as well as a large amount of jamming equipment, allowing it to stay hidden from the enemy until the time was right.

However the most striking difference between the Block Is and the Block IIs was that while the Block Is proudly stated their hull number and their name on their lustrous grey hulls, the Block IIs had neither on their matte black hulls designed to blend in to the depths of space. This was done to keep the Ori from identifying the Block IIs on an individual basis and to keep them guessing at their true numbers. And while some Officers had problems commanding a warship with no sense of individuality, this suited Somerville just fine.

Four years ago, if someone had told him if you had told him that he would be commanding an interstellar starship that would be used to defend Earth from an alien race from another galaxy, he would have believed that someone had a little too much to drink at the local pub night.

In 2004, the Royal Navy was continuing to downsize, a tend that had stared with the end of the Second World War under the Atlee Government and continued by its successors. At the time, Somerville was a Captain, commanding the HMS _Turbulent_, a _Trafalgar_ class attack submarine, his tour of duty about to end. With no political connections or friends in high places, prospects for promotion in a shrinking Navy were slim. Somerville knew that he would probably be leaving the service soon and rather than have Ministry of Defence inform him that his service was no longer required, he decided to split from the Navy on his own terms and submitted his resignation, effective at the end of his current Tour of Duty.

However much to his surprise, not only was his resignation not accepted, in addition, he was summoned to meet with the First Sea Lord for a private meeting to discuss his future in the service.

When Somerville arrived at the First Sea Lord's Office, dressed in his No. 1 Dress Blue, the head of the Royal Navy told him that he a had a proposal that promised to be beneficial for him and the Navy. The only thing the Admiral wanted was for Somerville to hear him out before he made his mind. If he declined, the Navy while it would be sad to see him go would allow him to retire honorably without a fuss.

The Admiral stated that he would be reassigned to Colorado Springs, specifically Cheyenne Mountain where the massive North American Radar Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD for short as the Chief Liaison Officer to a top secret program run by the Americans. And while this was all he could say at the moment before Somerville had to decide he promised Somerville that if he accepted, he would be almost assured of Admiralty.

Somerville accepted as not only the secrecy of the proposal intrigued him but also he had nothing to loose at all. His parents having had him late in life had passed away back when he was a Sub-Lieutenant. The demands of being a Naval Officer in Her Majesty's Navy prevented him from having a long-term relationship, as he had tried to do so three times and had failed in all three within six months. He had no brothers or sisters and the closest thing that he had to relatives were a pair of second cousins from his mother's side that he had met once in a family reunion back when he was a boy. In short if he were to disappear, no one would care let alone know.

The Admiral after hearing his consent then began to explain the nature of that Program and the history of the Stargate and the SGC, the American Military Unit in charge of running it. The Admiral explained that since Her Majesties Government was funding that said operation through the IOA, the multinational civilian watchdog it was time that the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland get its fair share of the metaphorical pie.

With the Americans already having three interstellar warships, the Russians about to receive their own from the Americans, the Chinese making preparations to build their own, and the French and the Canadians seeing no sense in reinventing the allegorical wheel by designing their own Warship, were in negotiations with the American government to purchase one of the American designed vessels, the Royal Navy would be damned if it would not have its own warships in space.

Somerville was told that his position of liaison Officer to the Americans would guarantee him that when the current government would finally get off its metaphorical arse and procure a vessel or hopefully vessels of its own he would take command of the very first space capable vessel commissioned by Her Majesty's Navy. Although realistically, given the attitudes of the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, the man in charge of the Treasury, known for his stinginess for Defence spending it might be some time for this to become a reality.

Somerville was then sent to Colorado Springs where he was put under the command of the British contingent of Stargate Command where he had served for two years and had not only gotten to know the men and women serving in the program but had gone on missions through the gate more than a couple of times getting in firefight or two with aliens, something that few Naval Officers got to do in this day and age.

When the news that the Ori had broken through at P3Y-229, Somerville was in London on his way to give the First Sea Lord his latest report on the Stargate Program.

With negotiations with the Americans to procure a BC-304 of their own, and with no command whatsoever, Somerville could only watch as the Ori descended from orbit and began to lay waste on the planet.

The three Ori ships separated to cover as much ground as possible. One went to Europe and Africa, one went to the Americas and the last went to Asia.

While the national militaries of Earth didn't have the high tech equipment such as F-302s and BC-304s like the SGC did, they still did their best to defend their nations. However even with nations throwing everything they got at the Ori, the Ori were able to wreck havoc almost unchecked.

With an Ori Battlecruiser landing ground troops at St. Petersburg and front line reports stating that a man with robes and a large staff was brushing off their attacks with ease, the President of the Russian Federation launched a tactical nuclear strike against his own city in hopes of not only taking out the Prior but destroying the Ori Battlecruiser as well. The first was a success but the strike but the second was a failure. However it did manage to damage the ship as its shields were down when it was deploying troops.

It all seemed hopeless and to an everyday observer not knowing of the Stargate Program, it seemed as the Apocalypse was being unleashed before his or her own eyes.

However the tide began to turn. General O'Neill was able to get down to Antarctica and launch the remaining Ancient drone weapons at two of the three enemy warships while the Asgard, knowing that Earth was in danger sent a fleet of thirty warships to defeat the Ori incursion and having just arrived, dealt with the last remaining ship.

The casualties were horrendous both civilian and military.

The overall death toll for the attempted invasion was officially 60 million. However due to the dense population of many metropolitan areas that were hit and the tendency of Ori weaponry to vaporize entire city blocks in a single shot, the true number of deaths would never be known. The cities of New York, Shanghai, Prague and San Francisco were now smoking craters and while many others survived, good chunks of them were missing.

The United States Navy lost eight of its twelve carrier battle groups with the remaining four heavily damaged. Its Air Force lost 90 of its F-302s. Against Ori fighters, its 'regular' fighters the F-15 Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-22 Raptors were no match for those fielded by the Ori. The Army and the Marine Corps, while they were primarily ground-based forces, had many of their bases reduced to rubble.

Somerville's own United Kingdom while it didn't suffer as many losses in terms of military personnel killed, proportionally they fared worse. The Royal Navy had lost all three of its _Invincible_ class carriers, the _Illustrious_ and the _Ark Royal_ were at the bottom of the Atlantic while the _Invincible_ herself which was mothballed at the time, was at the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor where the government was still debating on whether or not to raise her off the ocean floor or to let her be. The RN's newest acquisition, the HMS _Daring_, the first of the new Type 45 Air Defense Destroyer was destroyed as well, although it did take down three Ori fighters down along with it. The RAF's Tornadoes and its new Typhoons fared equally as poorly as their American counterparts. And to add insult to injury, the HMS _Victory_, the flagship of Admiral Nelson himself, a piece of living history destroyed by collateral damage when Ori forces were destroying HMNB Portsmouth.

The IOA nations, knowing that it was impossible to keep the program hushed up and that while it wasn't the best conditions to reveal the Stargate Program, announced the Stargate Program to the public. IOA knowing that the public's trust in their governments was questionable, decided to declassify nearly everything in order to restore as much credibility as possible.

The public's reaction to the events was first shock, as this seemed straight out of the plot of a science fiction movie and then anger at not only at the aliens who were responsible but their own governments for not only allowing this to happen but in addition failed to inform the public of what was going on.

Knowing that the public wished for an explanation the IOA nations decided to have an open hearing via the United Nations that was worldwide. For the next month and a half, the public watched as many members of the SGC including Somerville himself were called to the stand to explain their actions.

After the hearings were over, the general consensus by the public, which was much calmer and rational was that while they disagreed with many of the actions made by Stargate Command, given the circumstances and the lack of hindsight, the SGC did the best it could with the situation at hand.

The Ori attack had caused the world economy into a tailspin. The NYSE and NASDAQ along with the rest of Wall Street were gone along with Shanghai Stock Exchange causing financial losses of more than five trillion pounds. The national governments on Earth knew that they did not have the means financially or politically to keep their nations from turning into failed states. Deciding that it was best for everyone to pool their resources, they began to call for a One World Government although many did this reluctantly.

The issue at hand was not whether or not to form a World Government but its composition. To formally facilitate this, the nations of Earth held a Constitutional Convention to form a Constitution for the Government to follow.

Some wanted a Unitary State, controlled by a powerful Central Government. However many delegates felt very strongly that they were not comfortable giving so much power to a such a government even if was elected by the people. To many the potential of said government to dissolve into a dictatorship that would tyrannize the population and erode Civil Liberties was too tempting. The last thing anyone wanted was an all-powerful Government similar to George Orwell's famous novel 1984, watching over the populace and monitoring their every move, something that with technology derived from the Stargate Program was now possible to do.

Others wanted a Confederation that would leave most of the power in the hands of individual States with little power invested into a central government. However to many this was not good at all as the Central Government would be completely impotent and would be dominated by the more developed states. In addition with most of the power resting in the hands of the states, there was little chance of effective leadership whatsoever similar to the Polish Diet of Medieval Europe. Having too little government was just as bad as having too much government.

Instead a Federal Model was selected, as it was a balance between two extremes. While it wasn't perfect to any degree it was the best solution and compromise that would be accepted by the majority of the Delegates and would be based off the governments of Germany, Canada and the United States.

Henry Hayes was selected as the First President of the Terran Federal Republic. The reasoning behind many of the Delegates for voting for Hayes was that since Hayes and the rest of the leaders of the IOA States were responsible for this mess, it was their job to fix it. On a darker note, if things went wrong, he would be the one who would take most of the blame, not his political rivals.

While citizens of former IOA nations headed the Ministries of Defense, Interior and the position of Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, Hayes made sure that the Offices of the Vice President, and the heads of the Ministries of Foreign Relations, Health and Human Services, Finance and War Production were held by citizens that were part of states that did not know of the Stargate Program as well as his political rivals in order not only to build consensus but to ensure if things did go wrong, they too would be linked to his failures.

The first priority of the newly created Terran Federal Republic was to stabilize the economy and to transform its remnants into a war economy as soon as possible.

The National Militaries were merged together and its personnel and equipment were placed under the command of the Ministry of Defense with George Hammond as its head and Jonathan O'Neill the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Military's most Senior Officer.

One of the main concerns of the Ministry of Defense was that since almost all of the space capable assets of the former United States and the Russian Federation were gone, Earth was vulnerable to attack.

The majority of Earth's shipyards, being based near Metropolitan areas were heavily damaged or destroyed. To make matters worse engineers estimated that it would take months if not years to repair them and to build new facilities on the ground. And even if they were operational, there were only a few shipyards on Earth that could build vessels as large as the _Daedalus_-class.

In order to rebuild its Space Forces as quickly as possible, the Terran Federal Government with the assistance of the Asgard built space based shipyards at the First and Second LaGrange Points as well as the massive Space Elevators to facilitate the flow of materials to keep them going. An added benefit to this was that they were spaced farther apart from one another, putting its metaphorical eggs in multiple baskets thus preventing the Ori from destroying all of Earth's assets at one fell swoop.

With Somerville's knowledge of the Stargate Program before its revelation to the public and his credentials not only from his time with the SGC but his service as a Captain of a Nuclear Attack Submarine earned him a spot at the newly created Prospective Starship Commanding Officer's School where he and others were taught the fundamentals of Space Warfare. Somerville was among the top 10 of the 100 Officers out of 150 who passed the class, and was rewarded with the Command of the TFNS _Archer_ one of the Navy's newly completed _Daedalus_ Block IIs.

"Sir?" asked a familiar voice sitting next to him, interrupting his thoughts, "We're about to dock."

Somerville's mind snapped back to the present. "Thank you," he said to Commander Shiro Fujimaki, the man who would become the Archer's Executive Officer as well as his former classmate.

**Wardroom, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Captain, Terran Federal Navy, Commander, Terran Federal Navy arriving!" barked the Marine Sentry stationed outside of the compartment as he and Fujimaki entered the Wardroom.

As one the assembled Officers and single Master Chief making up the Command Crew stood as one behind their seats, completely at attention.

"At ease," Somerville said, to the assembled personnel and then shifted his gaze to a tall, sandy haired man with three broad golden stripes, the insignia of a Commander displayed on his sleeves. "Captain Molotov, I would like to proceed with the Change of Command Ceremony immediately as we do not have time to spare," he said, using the honorific given to every Commanding Officer of a vessel. Naval tradition demanded that any Officer in command of a vessel was to be addressed as Captain, regardless of their actual rank.

"Yes sir," said Commander Vasily Molotov, the ship's engineer and acting Commanding Officer and moved from his position behind his seat to where he was two feet away from the Captain and was directly facing him.

Somerville removed a formal looking envelope from the inside of his dress uniform, opened it and began to read out loud. "From NAVPERSCOM (Naval Personnel Command) to Captain Terence Somerville, TFN. 'You are hereby ordered to report for duty as the commanding officer of TFNS_ Archer,_ BC-5. You will relieve the acting commanding officer and will retain permanent command of the vessel until further notice.'"

Somerville pocketed the envelope and its contents and then executed a stiff and formal salute. "Captain Molotov, I am ready to relieve you, sir."

Molotov then saluted back in the same manner and replied, "I am ready to be relieved," his speech revealing a thick Russian accent.

"I relieve you sir," Somerville said as he saluted the Commander for the last time, as he officially became the senior and commanding officer aboard the _Archer_.

"I stand relieved," Commander Molotov formerly of the Russian Navy replied formally as he for the first time saluted his new Commanding Officer, thus completing the formal change of command ceremony.

"My first act as Captain of this vessel is designate Commander Shiro Fujimaki as my Executive Officer and Commander Vasily Molotov as the Chief Engineer," he stated, glad that the bureaucratic nuances out of the way.

"Now that the formalities have been done away, let us get to the task at hand," gesturing everyone to take their seats once more.

"I want a full status report on the _Archer_," Somerville stated, now seated at the head of the oval shaped table. "Commander Blanchard?"

"Overall, the ship is 99 complete and construction is due to finish tomorrow as the dock workers are putting the finishing touches as we speak," stated the Commander who was seated at Somerville's left.

"And the reactor?"

"The reactor is active and fully functional at 100 percent capability," Molotov replied, who according to his personnel file, was the Chief Engineer of an _Akula_-class Nuclear Attack Submarine before the war.

"And the conduits?" Somerville asked. The last thing he wanted was for his energy weapons to suddenly come off line in the middle of a battle due to a faulty conduit.

"They just installed the last of them yesterday. I haven't been able to inspect all of them however conduits I have seen are perfectly functional."

"I want all of them inspected before we leave the dock under our own power," Somerville ordered before turning to his attention to the Officer to Molotov's left.

"Yes sir."

"Commander Drossier?"

"Weapons have been installed and fully operational. However at the moment, we do not have any missiles for either our tube launchers or ammunition for our railguns. However they are set to arrive from Earth shortly," reported Lieutenant Commander Jacques Drossier, the Archer's weapons officer.

"Excellent," he turned his gaze to the man sitting opposite of the Frenchman. "Lieutenant Engelmann?"

"Our sensor system and transporters are fully functional. However I have not been able to test the cloaking device as the ship is still under construction," reported Lieutenant Klaus Engelmann, formerly of the Deutsche Marine or in English, the German Navy.

"I doubt the yard workers would appreciate it if the ship were to suddenly disappear," Somerville said wryly.

The assembled personnel chuckled, breaking the metaphorical ice.

"I do not think that they would," the Lieutenant replied with a straight face.

"Lieutenant Gonzalez?"

"Star charts have been installed on our Navigation computers. Hyperdrive and our STL drive are both installed and while we have not been able to test them for obvious reasons, I am confident that they will do fine," stated Lieutenant Ernesto Gonzales.

"I will take your word on it. Lieutenant Chandra?"

"I have filled out the necessary forms and the supplies are en route from Earth as we speak," reported Sub-Lieutenant Dabeet Chandra, the _Archer_'s logistics officer. Out of the Command Crew Chandra was the odd man out. While the rest of the Archer's Department Heads had all served on Submarines, Chandra was a former Surface Warfare Officer who had served on Frigates and Destroyers of the former Indian Navy.

"Great, Master Chief?"

"At the moment, we've got around 60 of the crew on board with the rest due to come in by tonight and are settling in at the moment. Morale is good and they're willing and eager to take the fight to the Ori," reported Master Chief William Blanchard, the ship's Senior Non-Commissioned Officer and Somerville's link to the enlisted personnel.

"Good," Somerville nodded.

With the exception of the Chief Engineer and the rest of the Officers in the Engineering Department, who were present to oversee the installation of the ship's reactor, the rest of the ship's crew had not been formally assigned to the _Archer_ until the last minute. Like Somerville, they had been attending various technical schools to learn how to do their assigned duties on a warship in space rather than on water. While operating in space was similar in principle to operating on water, when one got to the specifics it was completely different and required the retraining to adjust to the new field of battle.

"Thank you for the excellent report. Given the tight time schedule we have until we are due to separate from the dock, and the amount of duties that we all have to perform, I call this meeting to an end. If anyone needs me, I will be in my quarters" Somerville said, ending the meeting as quickly as possible. He had taken enough of his Department Heads' time already. Having them sit in the Wardroom doing nothing would be nothing but a waste of their time and besides, he had his own duties that he had to carry out himself before the _Archer_ could be underway and began Space Trials.


	2. Chapter 2

**Captain's Quarters, TFNS **_**Archer**_**, Low Earth Orbit**

February 28th, 2008

Captain Somerville quickly punched in his access code on to the keypad attached to the front of the hatch that separated his own personal quarters from the corridor outside. His six-hour watch in the _Archer_'s CIC had just ended and the last thing he wanted to do was to waste time, especially with all the work that he had to do.

The green light on the electronic lock lit up, signaling that the code that Somerville had entered was indeed correct, disabling the lock that preventing any unwanted quests from disturbing the Captain's privacy.

Somerville hastily opened the hatch entering his quarters and in the same fashion closed it, leaving his quarters once more closed off to the rest of the ship.

As soon as the hatch closed, Somerville let out a sigh of relief, glad to finally be alone.

On a warship, privacy was a luxury that few could afford. Space was something that could not be wasted. With the majority of the ship's internal volume devoted to one thing or another, weapons systems, weapons _storage_, reactor conduits and so on left little space for the crew. Hot bunking, the practice of assigning of multiple personnel to a single bed in which the bed would always be slept in by one of crew while his or her, (the Military had opened up the entirety of the Armed Forces, including the combat arms to women) comrades were standing watch, was standard for all enlisted personnel. Chief Petty Officers and Junior Officers did get their own beds in which they shared lodging in the same cabin with five other people. Department Heads and the Master Chief only had to share a room with one other person although their berth was the same size as those used by their subordinates. Only the Commanding Officer and the Executive Officer were allowed their own personal lodging though they did have to share a bathroom. While this didn't seem like much to a civilian, it was light years ahead of the cramped conditions of the HMS _Conqueror_ that he had served on eighteen years ago as a newly Commissioned Sub Lieutenant in Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

Needless to say claustrophobia was a major issue. Being packed in small living environment with six hundred other people was not the best living environment one could ask for. Personal space was a highly valued commodity. Because of this, the majority of those sailors crewing the Navy's new warships came from submarine backgrounds.

Unlike their counterparts with Surface Warfare backgrounds, submariners had experienced living in restricted conditions similar to that of a Space-going warship for long periods of time. The average deployment of a Wet-Navy submarine lasted from six months to a year only surfacing a around a dozen times for short periods during the entire tour of duty. It meant that more than 90 of the time, the average submariner was cut off from fresh air, sunlight and other normal comforts that were similarly restricted in Space travel.

Obviously for those not used to such conditions, living in such constrained environments was trying both mentally and emotionally. Studies had shown that those not accustomed to living in such conditions after a sustained period of time would gradually decrease their productivity, become more irritable and were more prone to acts to violence. Knowing this, the Navy instituted a requirement that a Sailor, both Officer and Enlisted had to pass mandatory psychiatric exam before being cleared for ship duty. The majority of former submariners were able to pass the exam with flying colors while their Surface Warfare counterparts were still being trained work and operate in such environments. However even those personnel used to working in such surroundings were not totally immune to the side effects. To counteract this, the Navy instituted a rule stating for every six month to one-year deployment, a ship's crew had to spend half the amount of time up to six months on shore duty before being allowed to go on another deployment. While this rule could be stretched in wartime, the Navy's Admirals, knowing the limits on the human psyche knew that it could only be stretched so far.

After allowing himself that brief luxury, Somerville collected himself and focused his attention back to his latest task, doing his utmost to complete his never-ending stack of paperwork.

Somerville doffed his ball cap, placing it on the far end of his desk conveniently located on the starboard side of the bulkhead (1), directly opposite to his bunk and took a seat. Somerville couldn't help but grin for the umpteenth time as he saw the comical image of a Medieval Archer resembling one of Robin Hood's Merry Men with the words TFNS _Archer_ BC-5 written above the image embroidered on the front of the cap.

The Ball Caps had been a United States Navy tradition especially among the members of its submarine force. Master Chief Blanchard, himself a former member of the USN suggested that they bring this tradition to the _Archer_. Instead of wearing the Combination and the Dixie Cup Covers that were issued to the ship's Officers, Chiefs and Enlisted Personnel respectively, Blanchard reasoned to the Captain that the universal implementation of ball caps for Officer and enlisted personnel alike would not only raise morale but establish _esprit de corps_ as well. Somerville approved the Master Chief's proposal as anything that could turn the crew from a mob of strangers into a well-oiled and coordinated team as fast as possible was worth doing. Personally however, Somerville being British, preferred wearing his Combination Cover as the sight of a Ball Cap reminded him too much of the denizens of Metropolitan Britain commonly known as Chavs. Despite this, he like everyone else on the _Archer_ wore the Cap for morale purposes.

Somerville opened a manila folder lying on his desk, the first of many and took out its contents. He groaned he knew that he had to do his duty, however it didn't mean that he had to like it.

The movies and the shows on the telly had romanticized the idea of commanding a vessel out on the open sea or in his case space, full of battles, glory and beautiful women and aliens. Did those louts who stared in those shows even have the inkling what it was really like to serve? The long boring watches in the CIC, the almost never-ending monotonous pace that life on a warship far, far away from home that made up 98 of a deployment mixed with the feeling of abject terror and shock making up the rest. Captaining a warship wasn't all guts and glory; there were other duties, duties that were often tedious and sometimes distasteful but nevertheless needed to be done. Sure he had a Staff to help him but a Staff could only help him so much. If Lieutenant Chandra requested additional provisions, for the _Archer_ it was he who had to sign off on it. Sure, as the Logistics Officer, Chandra did have to fill out the paperwork, but until Somerville had signed it, it was neither official nor completed, as he was in charge of the vessel in every way shape or form. If the _Archer_ destroyed fifteen Ori Battlecruisers, he would get the credit and would be lauded beyond measure. But on the same principle if one of his personnel caused an accident, damaging the ship and injuring the crew, it would be he, who would be held accountable and would face a Court Martial. Such was the nature and burden of Command.

"Captain Somerville," interrupted his computer. "Commodore Li is on the line."

Somerville's eyebrows rose. Commodore Li Zheng-Sheng was the Commander of Stealth Squadron Two and Somerville's direct superior. "Put him on," Somerville ordered.

The bulkhead-attached monitor above his desk, situated at his eyelevel turned on, changing from a blank slate and revealing the face of a middle-aged man of Asian descent. "Greetings Captain. I hope I have not disturbed you."

"Not at all sir," Somerville responded, despite the fact that the Commodore had in fact interrupted him in the middle of something. One had to watch what they said to their superiors, no matter what profession.

"How are things with you and the _Archer_?" the Chinese Commodore asked.

"Excellent sir. We are getting ready to beam aboard the components for Refinery D14 as we speak."

The Ori Assault on Earth had not only struck Earth economically but also crippled its energy supply. Before entering the atmosphere, the Ori had taken up positions in orbit over the oil fields of the Middle East and opened fire, destroying the oil fields and did not stop until the desert sands of the Middle East were turned into glass. To make things worse, the Ori had also savaged the oil fields of Russia as well as those stationed off of the shores of the Southern United States. When the Ori were finally repulsed, 60 of Earth's oil supplies were destroyed.

The remaining oil fields, located mostly in South America were not able to keep up with the world's energy demand. The price of a barrel of oil had tripled overnight causing the economy to decline even more as the cost of transporting goods from one place to another had gone up as well.

However there was some good caused by the destruction of the majority of the world's oil fields. While a small but vocal minority wanted to begin drilling for oil in Alaska and Siberia, the majority of the populace viewed this as the perfect time to switch from using Petroleum to a new alternative energy source.

The use of both Solar and Wind to power Earth's electricity grid was implemented. However both technologies, while they were both clean and renewable had their drawbacks. First, they were dependent on the local weather conditions meaning that if the local area was not sunny or windy, depending on the type of power plant was in the area the plants could not generate power. Second was that they took a lot of space. Solar panels and Wind Turbines were area intensive meaning that a coal or an oil powered power plant could produce the same amount of energy with much less space. Lastly and most importantly however was the fact that Solar and Wind alone could not power Earth's energy grid. Not only did it have to power the existing infrastructure but maintain the mass fabricators given to Earth by the Asgard as well. Solar and Wind Energy could be a supplementary source of power but not as Earth's primary source.

What was needed was a method that could produce high yields of energy to not only fuel Earth's War Machine but in addition ensure that the ordinary citizenry could still enjoy the creature comforts that electricity, albeit in less quantities before the war.

Nuclear fission was a viable candidate. Nuclear technology, first developed during the Second World War, over six decades ago was widespread making it easy to build more power plants as the industrial base was already there. In addition, nuclear power was capable of producing the amount of energy that Earth needed. However this was not chosen for political considerations. Many citizens still remembered the incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. While nuclear technology had improved over the years, much of the citizenry were still weary of nuclear power as a meltdown, while with Stargate-derived technology could be fixed would cost the Government billions if not trillions of credits, credits that could be better spent elsewhere.

Naquahdah was also a potential source. Naquahdah was able to generate power in much large quantities than nuclear fission could. A small reactor that could be lugged around by a single person was able to generate the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants. However that idea was also rejected. Even with its allies readily and supplying the material and several off world mining operations, Earth only had a small supply of Naquahdah and the Military got the majority of it for the reactors for its starships as well as for its warheads.

In the end, the Ministry of Energy chose Nuclear Fusion as its primary source of power. Like nuclear _fission_, nuclear fusion was able to generate a large amount of clean energy. However while nuclear fission dealt with splitting an atom in two, nuclear fusion involved fusing two atoms into one. This not only generated power in greater quantities than via fission but was much less radioactive as well. The Earth with Asgard help had been able to reliably create a fusion reactor, something that had been previously deemed impossible. To many it seemed that nuclear fusion was the perfect solution to Earth's energy problems.

However nuclear fusion held one key drawback. It required the use of an isotope called Helium-3. Unfortunately, it was extremely rare on Earth as there was less than 5 kilograms of the substance available. Luckily for Earth, Helium-3 was prevalent in other parts of the Solar System, especially inside of its Gas Giants.

The Ministry of Energy proposed that a large number of Orbital based refineries be developed in order to gain access to Helium-3 in significant quantities for its Nuclear Fusion plants. The government accepted this plan as not only would it allow Earth to implement the use of nuclear fusion across the board, but it also put people back to work, something that the Terran economy desperately needed.

The refineries would be partially assembled on Earth into modules and would be transported to their respective location via Starship where final assembly would take place. For the last two weeks, the _Archer_ and several of her sisters had been assigned to the task as not only did it allow their crews to test the various systems of their newly completed warships, but it also made use of Earth's limited spacelift capacity in the most efficient way possible.

"It is my duty to inform you that effective immediately your mission is now cancelled. The _Astute_ will take your place," the Commodore said, referring to one of the other three ships in Stealth Squadron Two.

"Sir?"

"The decision came from the President himself. The _Daedalus_ was supposed to make a run to Langara and transport the latest shipment of F-302s Kelownan Military. However one of her sublight engines malfunctioned, leaving her unable to make the run. The President wants that shipment sent to Langara as fast as possible and given that your vessel is nearest to Earth, the _Archer_ is going complete the mission instead. I don't need to tell you how important this shipment is to the Republic."

Somerville nodded.

Even thought it was almost two years since the Ori had attacked Earth, economically Earth was still struggling although the situation was much better than it had been a year ago. Money was tight at the moment. The average family was barely able to break even as the government implemented a progressive income tax that started at 25 as well as a 40 sales tax to help fund the war. Necessities such as food, water and electricity while in ample supply was rationed in order to ensure that everyone, not just those in the Western States received enough necessities.

One of the few industries that were actually thriving was the Arms Industry. As not only was the Industry supplying the needs of the Terran Military but that of resistance fighters as well as Earth's off world allies especially the planets of Pangar and Langara.

Both planets were technologically behind Earth by at least half a century, not even possessing the technology to build jet engines. Before the war, both planets had lobbied Earth for access to its military technology. However while the IOA nations had approved deals to sell some military equipment namely assault rifles, Kevlar helmets and other small ticket items, it refused to approve some of the larger items such as Armored Personnel Carriers, Main Battle Tanks and Cruise Missiles. The former IOA Nations had told the Heads of State of the two planets that it would be too suspicious for the Stargate Program if the IOA nations were to take some of its older equipment from storage and refurbish it in mass quantities.

However with the Stargate Program now out in the open and Earth locked in a Galactic war with a crippled economy, the Terran government reversed its stance one hundred and eighty degrees. Earth could not afford to anger its allies, as Earth needed the support of its allies as much as its allies needed Earth. Exports particularly Military equipment was vital to the health of its economy. Instead of offering Cold War castoffs, Hayes Administration began to put its latest and greatest hardware available to its allies including F-302s, BC-304s as well as other military equipment under development. Earth not only had to ensure that its economy was healthy but also, guarantee that its allies were able to defend themselves to the best of their ability. While some criticized the policy questioning the loyalty of a few of Earth's allies and feared that the Ori might get their hands on Terran Military Secrets, the Hayes Administration believed that the benefits, namely the goodwill of Earth's allies outweighed any potential risk. Both planets welcomed this change and had bought over five hundred billion credits (one credit is two US Dollars) worth of military hardware this year alone.

"I'm sending you the cargo manifest now," said Li.

A second later his computer confirmed that the manifest had indeed arrived via secure channel.

Somerville opened the message, splitting the screen on his monitor so he could view the manifest and could still communicate with the Commodore at the same time and began to read.

The manifest called for the _Archer_ to transport eight F-302 Space Superiority Fighters Somerville knew that he could transport the F-302s inside his hangar bay. While it could the bay was designed for four fighters to operate off of, if it was ferrying fighters from one location to another it could carry twice as much. "Sir, am I to assume that the _Archer_ will be filled to the brim for the run?" Somerville asked the Commodore to confirm his suspicions.

"The _Archer_ will have its energy weapons and a full amount of Mark VIIIs and rail gun ammunition," replied the Commodore, "Relax Captain; this is a simple delivery mission, those missiles will be off of your ship before you know it. You and the _Archer_ should be back safe inside the Sol System before you know it," Li said, trying to reassure the Captain.

"Yes sir," Somerville nodded.

"General O'Neill himself has contacted Langley Space Force Base of the change of plans and they are expecting your arrival within the hour," Li said.

While the _Archer_ could in fact beam up the cargo, the fact that the vessel was going to be stuffed to the brim with equipment meant that they were going to do it the old fashioned way via elbow grease and sweat. Even though transporters were a reliable technology, any mishap such as a miscalculation of the internal volume of the _Archer_ or the failure of the transporter to position the cargo in its intended place would be catastrophic. Both the Navy and Somerville in particular wanted to avoid Murphy's Law. The last thing the _Archer_ needed was for an F-302 to be transported in between its hull armor instead of the hangar bay. Although loading it via cranes and muscle power meant that the Archer would arrive later and would require the Archer to land on the Earth's surface, it was more dependable and would guarantee that the cargo was loaded safely and securely.

"Yes sir," Somerville replied. "The _Archer_ will arrive on time and on schedule."

"Excellent. Good luck Captain," Li then terminated the connection.

Somerville stood up and grabbed his cap, and prepared to leave for the CIC to inform the crew of the change in plans, his own plans of doing his administrative duties now up in smoke.

**Fifteen Hours Later**

**CIC, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Sir we're about to revert to real space," reported Gonzalez from his console.

Somerville nodded, "raise shields to full capacity as soon as we emerge out of hyperspace," he ordered. Although he was arriving in friendly territory, due to the nature of hyperspace he and his ship would be emerging into the system completely blind. Somerville would rather be safe than sorry.

"We've exited hyperspace," said the Navigator.

"Contacts," reported Engelmann. "Twelve, I repeat one two contacts vectoring towards our position at 10 o'clock. Sensors identify them as F-302s; their IFF identifies them as Kelownan. Estimated time they can get a solid idea on our general position "

"Excellent," replied Somerville, surprised by the Kelownan's response time to his arrival. The Archer had been in Kelownan space less than a minute before being detected by the local defense forces. Needless to say he was impressed. For a civilization that hadn't even developed jet engines three ago, it appeared that they had learned pretty quickly.

"Sir, we are getting a transmission," Engelmann stated.

"Put it on."

"Unidentified warship, this is Wing Commander Laturn of the Kelownan Military. Identify your self at once you will be fired upon. You have thirty seconds to comply."

It suddenly hit Somerville. The _Archer_'s ECM although set at passive at the moment, was probably confounding the sensors on the F-302s. The fact that its hull color was black didn't help the Kelownan pilots identify his ship. _They probably thought that they were under attack by an unknown ship._ He thought to himself. "Open a channel and shut down all Electronic Countermeasures," he ordered quickly, not wanting to start a friendly fire incident.

"You're on sir," the Lieutenant responded quickly.

"Wing Commander Laturn this is Captain Terence Somerville of the Terran Navy. I'm broadcasting my authorization codes as we speak."

"Understood Captain. Hold position until we can verify your identity," the Kelownan Officer ordered.

Somerville waited patiently along with the rest of those present in the CIC, resisting the temptation to look at his watch, set to the ship's time. Those authentication codes better have been correct, he thought to himself. If the Kelownans didn't believe him and opened fire, although the _Archer_ could easily get away from the Kelownans, a diplomatic incident between Earth and Langara was the last thing he wanted.

Thirty seconds passed until the Commander spoke up once again. "Captain Somerville, we have confirmed your identity. We have orders to escort you in."

"Understood Commander," Somerville responded, "lead the way."

An Hour Later

Kelownan Military Installation No. 201 

As he walked down the ramp that separated the _Archer_ and the foreign soil of another planet, with his Command Crew behind him, Somerville did his best to appear cool, calm and collected despite the fact that he wasn't. By nature, he was a quiet and reserved person and would rather operate in the field rather than command some desk back home or heaven forbid, serve as the Naval Attaché to some off world Embassy.

Taking a look at his surroundings, Somerville was pleasantly surprised. He had expected the base to be similar to a RAF installation straight out of the Second World War instead he found the installation to be completely modern and would not be out of place on any developed area on Earth.

The airbase was extremely large and could easily accommodate his 300-meter plus long vessel without any trouble, something that he had worried about when he and his crew brought the _Archer_ for orbital reentry. After all, it wasn't everyday when a large flying object the size of a Wet-Navy Supercarrier landed at your base.

Large numbers of parked F-302s were all around tarmac. Given the size of the base, there were probably more of them, either in the massive structures that Somerville figured to be hangars or on patrol. Given the distance from his vessel, he couldn't tell if they were Kelownan or Terran.

He noticed that the base had a large amount of Humvees or similar looking vehicles, at its disposal, something that was almost a requirement given the large size of the base. They were either bought by the Kelownans at low prices as Military Surplus or given to them for free as military aid, as thousands of them had been built.

However what was the most noticeable thing about the base was its defenses. Somerville could see at least ten Thales Goalkeeper Close In Weapons Systems modified for land use as well numerous surface-to-air missile launchers, some of them mounted on a small number of the Humvees and others located in fixed installations spread out across the base. He could see in the far distance large amount of armed Soldiers or Military Police, he wasn't sure, observing from the barricades that separated the base from any unwanted visitors. In short the base was a literal fortress.

At the foot of the ramp, Somerville could see that an honor guard of twenty soldiers, ten on each side with their Steyr AUG Assault Rifles stood at attention at the Present Arms Position. While they were not in dress uniform, their battledress fatigues, he noticed that the camouflage pattern that they were using was DPM, the same pattern the Armed Forces of the former United Kingdom had used before the war, were neatly pressed and ironed. Their combat boots were in similar condition and were glossy and clean enough that they easily reflected any light to happen to strike them.

At the head of the Honor Guard, were three people, two men and one woman. One was wearing the standard Alice Blue dress shirt, covered by a darker Navy Blue Tie, Jacket, Slacks and Service Cap, (the Navy called them Combination Covers) which made up the Standard Terran Space Force Service Dress Uniform. Judging by the silver Oak leaves on the visor on his Service Cap, he guessed that he was at least a One Star General at the very least. Much to his surprise he recognized him. After all, after seeing his face all over the news, it was hard not to know who Cameron Mitchell was. The Second was wearing a uniform of similar cut. However unlike the first, the blue on this man's uniform was much lighter and had a faded quality to it, similar to the color used by the old Royal Air Force. The last of the group was not in any formal dress at all and instead was attired in a flight suit, modeled after the ones used by any modern Air Force before the war's start. Unlike her companions, her head was bare, revealing her short hair to everyone present.

As soon as both of his feet stepped off the ramp and were on Kelownan soil, second man greeted him, holding out his hand, "Captain Somerville, welcome to Installation 201. I am Air Marshal Bestir, the Commanding Officer."

Somerville paused for a moment. Technically according to Naval Regulations, he was supposed to salute the other man and ask for permission to disembark. However it now appeared this was not going to happen. He quickly decided that it was best to mirror the man's actions and took the other man's hand. "Thank you Marshal. It is an honor to visit your installation. I must say that I am quite impressed."

"Thank you. Your Government was generous enough to pay for the construction of the Installation at no cost at all to ours."

Somerville fought to keep his eyebrows from rising. Constructing a modern Military Base from scratch in the middle of nowhere let alone in a populated area with existing infrastructure set the Government back at least ten Billion credits. However he did have to admit that compared to the amount of money that was generated via arms sales, this was chump change. "That is excellent," he managed to say.

"Thank you Captain," the Marshal replied, "My apologies. I forgot to introduce my companions," he gestured to Mitchell.

"We've met," interrupted Major General Cameron Mitchell, the head of the Space Force Component of the Terran Military's Joint Task Force Langara, which was in charge of not only in change of defending the three nations of Langara, the Kelownan Hierarchy, the Andari Federation and the Terranian Confederacy but training their Militaries to modern standards as well. "The Captain and I served together in the SGC before the war started," he quickly explained.

Somerville was surprised that Mitchell remembered him from his time with the SGC. Everyone who had worked with or under the command of Stargate Command knew who the members of SG-1 were, however the opposite was not true. The members of SG-1, although polite and friendly were pretty much an insular group and spent most of their time with each other or General Landry. Somerville remembered having a couple of conversations with Mitchell in the Mess Hall. However that was years ago and with the turbulent events following the attack on Earth and the immediate disclosure of the Stargate to the public, it might as well have been a few decades. For him to remember who he was and recognize him, spoke highly of Mitchell's memory.

"My apologies. I did not know that you two were acquainted."

"None needed Marshal," Somerville assured the Kelownan.

"And this is Wing Commander Laturn," he gestured to the woman in the flight suit, "she is the Commanding Officer of the Wing of Fighters that escorted your vessel in."

"A pleasure," said the Commander.

"Likewise," he responded. "Marshal, allow me to return the favor," he said and began to introduce the Kelowans to the members of his Command Crew.

"Captain, would you wish to take a tour of the facility?"

Somerville had originally planned on staying a very short time on Langara, wanting to drop off the fighters and leave as soon as possible. However it now obvious that this was not an option. The Kelowans had probably taken great pains to get the base ready for inspection and it would be rude of him and by default his Government to snub the Kelowans. It wasn't as if HOMECOM had given him a detailed schedule on when he had to be back. As the Commanding Officer of a Warship and a Senior Officer in the Terran Navy, he was given more latitude and freedom that came with the job and could be trusted to make decisions for himself rather than be micro managed by Earth. Throughout Earth's History, always gave a large degree of independence to its Captains and Admirals when they were deployed. Naturally this freedom came with great responsibility as they were held to a higher degree of responsibility than their peers in the other services. "Certainly," he said quickly. "Do you mind if my men participate in a short period of shore leave?"

"Not at all."

He turned to his XO. "Inform the crew that once they are done unloading the F-302s from the _Archer_ that they will granted shore leave until 0500 ship's time as a reward for their excellent work." The crew had been working nonstop to make the _Archer_ operational and he believed that it would be good raise morale for them to take a short break. Somerville wished that he could give his men more time, however with the war on, a couple of hours were all that he could give.

"Aye sir," Fujimaki saluted before executing an about face and along with the rest of the Officers began to walk up the ramp as quickly as possible. While they were part of the Command Crew, they too liked the prospect of leaving the cramped confines of the ship just like everyone else.

"Sir," he said to the Kelownan Marshal. "Lead the way."

Two Hours Later

**Mitchell's Office**

Somerville sat in the visitor's chair of Mitchell's Office. For the last hour, he and Mitchell had been dragged from one part of the base to another and were shown every last bloody detail of the installation, from the hardened underground bunkers where the F-302s were stored to the barracks where the installation's troops lived to the base's firing ranges where its Security Forces practiced with their firearms daily. He knew that it could have been worse; he remembered when he was an Officer Cadet the Queen had arrived; Commandant had given her an extensive tour of the facility lasting over three hours. At least this time he was the one doing the bloody inspecting.

After the tour, Mitchell had invited him back to his office on the base for a drink. Somerville had accepted as it not only would be nice to talk with a former comrade, it would be a nice break from the endless stacks of paperwork that he had to fill out.

On the other side of desk, Mitchell lounged his chair, his coat hung up on a rack, his tie loosened, while slowly sipping a glass of Jack Daniels finest. "Another glass Captain?"

"No thank you, Sir," replied Somerville who was also sipping from a glass, "While I would love to, I've got to get back to the ship in a couple hours." It would not be good for morale or discipline for that matter for him to return to the ship three sheets to the wind. "The whiskey is excellent though," Somerville was a Scotch drinker and while this wasn't, it was close enough. Besides who in their right mind would turn down a free drink?

"I understand," Mitchell said before putting the bottle away somewhere underneath his desk. "So," he said, changing the topic, "how are things on Earth now?"

Somerville paused. "Do you want the truth or what the drivel that media is reporting?"

"The truth please," Mitchell wanted to know what was going on, whether it be good or bad. The last thing he wanted was to be lied to.

"Well things are getting better. Unemployment has decreased significantly. We are all able to have at least 2500 calories a day. The power grid is back online and functional with almost everyone who had power before the war able to get a supply of electrical power. Order has been restored in majority of the planet with only few places still under martial law.

"However there is still a lot to be done. While unemployment is decreased, on average we still have over twenty percent of people still on the dole. According to a mate of mine who is working for the Ministry of Labor, those figures are misleading as the unemployment rate in the more developed countries are in the single digits while the that of the less developed countries is about three to five times that of the national average."

Mitchell nodded. The Ori attack on Earth had devastated Earth's infrastructure. A lot of people had found that while that they had survived, they had lost their jobs as their offices and stores didn't exist. To make things even worse, the jobs that the War had generated were mostly manufacturing based. With most of the developed nations mostly having service-based economies, many people had found that their new jobs paid a lot less than their old ones. Not only was there a massive pool that the Defense Contractors could pool from, but in addition with most people unskilled and unsuited in manufacturing it meant that they had to start from the ground up regardless of their former jobs.

Unlike their grandparents who had labored all day in the factories, the current generation had spent the majority of their work time in soft and cushy offices, thus making their transition even harder as their bodies were not used to the increased activity as most had not experienced exercise on a regular basis since the end of secondary school which for some had been decades ago.

"Even though we are getting enough eat, I believe that I can speak for all of Earth that we are tired of soy and chicken."

In the last throes of their rampage on Earth, the sole surving Ori Battlecruiser, knowing that the newly arrived Asgard Fleet was going to be destroyed, decided to inflict as much damage on Earth as possible taking it down as many people with it. The ship had changed from attacking Asia, particularly Japan for a less populated but much more vital target, the Artic Ice Caps with the intent of melting them in order to cause an ecological disaster. While the Asgard Fleet was able to destroy the last Ori warship, the enemy vessel had managed to melt a significant part of the ice caps.

As a result, the water levels on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans had raised significantly especially those countries nearest of the North Pole, flooding the coastal areas. The Netherlands had been flooded similar New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina causing property damage in the trillions and were responsible for the deaths of at least five thousand people, Somerville didn't know the exact figures.

The average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere had dropped eight degrees. A couple of colleagues of his stationed in newly created Federal State of England had told him that it was so damn cold that in the middle of July everyone was still wearing raincoats at the very least and that the local clothing outlets were practically giving away shorts, short sleeved shirts and bathing suits for free as no one wanted to buy them.

As a result, most of Europe and the Northern Most Parts of North America were unfit for farming, causing the supply of land that was arable to decrease. With the number of mouths to feed, staying the same or increasing as the Terran Federal Government had to watch out for not only those living in the developed parts of the world but the less developed and developing areas as well, under the order of President Hayes, the Ministry of Agriculture had taken steps to maximize the amount of food available to all.

First, the production of livestock had been decimated. One could get almost the same amount of protein from soybeans as they could get from meat. The amount of land required to raise a herd of cattle could produce over ten times the amount of protein in soybeans. This decision was obviously not popular with the populace, especially the Western States as they had been used to a cheap supply of meat for decades and soybeans while available where not popular, especially when used as substitutes for meat and milk. The Asian States, having cuisine that included soybeans for centuries fared better, although there was still some resentment towards the move.

Second, the use of Pesticides was proliferated in mass quantities. While this increased the risks of the populace, especially children getting poisoned by pesticides, it was much better to eat food that had pesticides in it rather than to have no food at all. Organic farming on a large scale was banned; as the use of such land to do so would not yield enough crops needed feed the populace. While this upset many vegans and other die-hard vegetarians, as they could only buy 'impure' foods, the Government reminded that they were not the only ones who needed to eat and stated that if they wished, they were more than welcome to grow their own food in their own backyards if they wished. Some had wanted to buy grain from other nations however this was not possible as Earth's allies especially the Free Jaffa Nation were relying on Earth to supply it with food rather than the other way around.

Finally the amount of chicken eaten by Earth's populace in proportion to other meats had risen dramatically. Chickens were small, could be taken care of by almost anyone with a backyard and were a good source of protein. To make things even better, chickens also supplied their owners with a supply of eggs on a regular basis. These factors encouraged those not living in the urban areas to raise their own chickens. To encourage more people to do this, the Government announced that any chickens being raised by a family for sustenance purposes would not count against that family's rationed food. However, Heath Officials were worried that the lack of knowledge and care in slaughtering them would cause disease and sickness as these days few people had that knowledge. To placate their fears, the local city governments had set up slaughtering centers in which they would slaughter and prepare the chicken for cooking in exchange for 10 of the meat.

"I take it that I'll have a hard time finding a steak?"

"Sir, if you were in possession of a steak or even a hamburger for that matter, I would advise you to eat it in private unless you feel like getting mobbed."

"I'll take your advice."

Somerville continued his news, "And to top things off, the Gendarmes are having a hell of a time keeping order in Africa and the remainder of the Middle East."

The Terran Federal Constitution forbid the Military to be used in Law Enforcement unless in times of Emergency or Insurrection. The people were fine with a large Military. However it was overwhelmingly believed that the Military and the Police should not mix. The Military was for dealing with external threats while the Police and other Law Enforcement Agencies would be responsible for maintaining order. A Military that did both almost always degenerated into a force that oppressed its people.

However there were some places on the planet that fallen into anarchy to the point where traditional Law Enforcement Agencies such as Police Departments or Investigative Agencies were not suited for or well equipped to maintain order as what was required as a Law Enforcement oriented force that had the same level of equipment used by the Military.

Thus the Terran Federal Gendarme Force was born. To comply with the Terran Constitution, the Gendarmes were placed under the control of the Terran Ministry of the Interior rather than the Ministry of Defense. Their role was to restore order and provide security in the less stable regions of Earth and were to be deployed in areas where the Local and State Law Enforcement Agencies were unable to do so. While they did use Military grade equipment, their gear was designed for increased mobility and protection from mines and other explosive devices, and gave up most of their weapons capability, as their goal was not to kill an enemy but to provide security to a war torn area. However if Earth were invaded once more, they would provide as a ready reserve that would supplement the Military if need be.

"Damn," Mitchell replied. Policing just one unstable developing state was hard enough but to do it to multiple states across an entire continent was a challenge even with advanced technology.

"Well like I said, things are getting better. Albeit slowly."

"So how is the buildup going?" Mitchell asked, changing the topic from the Civil issues of the Terran Republic to its massive military buildup, the largest of its kind in Earth's history undertaken by the Government to modernize its military and provide the arsenal needed to defend the Galaxy from Ori assault.

"Well sir, I'm just a Starship Captain and for the last year I've been in training not stationed at the Pentagon," he said, referring to the former Headquarters of the ex-US Defense Department and which now served as the current Headquarters of the Terran Ministry of Defense, "so my knowledge of current progress is limited."

"Just tell me what you know." Some news was better than no news.

"Well obviously, the Block IIs are operational."

"Yeah. I wasn't expecting you or your ship to arrive. I thought Caldwell and the _Daedalus_ would be doing the run."

"Well, they were supposed to. However one of her engines broke down, so we had to make the run instead."

"Damn."

"Well for the last two years she's been the only ship in our arsenal not to mention that we are at war, so she is being worn out at a faster pace than normal."

"True."

"The Yards at L1 and L2 are finishing up the first batch of forty Block IAs," he said referring to the conventionally oriented successor to the Block I designed to act like a heavy cruiser, "and our ground based yards are completing five _Osprey_-class corvettes each month. Our destroyer and frigate designs should be complete within the next couple of months."

"That's great. But when are you Navy boys going to build the _real_ ships?" asked Mitchell jokingly, baiting the Naval Officer.

"Well we do have to build the ships that will escort you flyboys around or else you all would be sitting ducks to Ori fire," replied Somerville, rising to the occasion.

"Touché."

"Realistically though, you won't see the _Hartmann_s or the _Bolivar_s for another year or two at the very least," he said, referring to the Navy's planned classes of Fleet Carriers and Supercarriers respectively. _If we are still around by that time_, he thought darkly. "We just laid one of the Supercarriers down about a month ago."

When the Ministry of Defense was still being formed, the Navy and the Space Force had argued over who would get control over the Military's fighters and bombers. President Hayes had informed the heads of the two services that there was only going to be one force of fighters and bombers under one service as there was no way whatsoever that the Government was going to fund two parallel forces that did nearly the same thing. Even though the Nation was at war, money was tight and the Government had to ensure that every credit was spent in the best way possible.

The Navy had argued that fighters were a mobile unit that were primarily stationed on Carriers and went on citing a long history of Naval Aviation and its effects on modern warfare. To increase their political clout, they had also brought in Members of the Legislature and notable members who had been part of their former countries' Navies to lobby on their behalf. And then concluded as such should be placed under their control.

The Air Force retorted that for the majority of the time, fighters were not deployed on carriers but were stationed on stationary bases for the majority of the time. Not to mention that the strategic bombers, other than in the Soviet and later Russian Navy had never been under the control of the Navy and had been the domain of the Air Force, the predecessor to the Space Force. Likewise the Space Force had also brought in its own Lobbyists to bring its point across.

President Hayes had ruled that the Space Force, not the Navy would be in control of the all of the Terran Federal Republic's Fighters and Bombers. This meant that Space Force Pilots would be flying off of the Navy's Carriers and that Naval Aviation had gone the way of the horse and buggy. While some in the Navy had cried foul, Hayes had served in the US Air Force during Vietnam, his decision stood.

However in an agreement between the Navy and the Space Force, those who joined the Space Force intending to be Pilots would advance through the ranks just like any non-Pilot Officer until they reached the rank of Colonel and held the Position of Wing Commander. At that time, they would have to indicate on their annual performance reports of their intention to either stay with the Space Force and become a General, choosing to command fixed installations such as Orbital Fortresses or Air Bases, or transfer to the Navy, take up Naval rank and Command Carriers and eventually fleets as an Admiral. The Navy had historically recruited its Carrier Captains from former Aviators. The had wanted to continue the practice and had informed the Space Force that in exchange for this concession, the Navy would reluctantly support the Space Force's bid for control of the Military's Fighter and Bomber Force.

"Who's building them?"

"Newport News I believe. You Americans have had the most experience building those massive behemoths. Northrop Grumman had to remodel the entire facility just to fit her; she's twice as long as a BC-304."

"Over 700 meters. Damn," Mitchell whistled.

"Carries a complement of over 200 fighters, armed to the teeth with anti-fighter missiles, point defense and mid ranged energy weapons and equipped with the best shields and sensors we have."

"No wonder you Navy boys are so insistent on defending her. If I wasn't a General, I'd apply to be her Wing Commander in a second."

"She'll be more protected than the Queen's Crown Jewels."

Before Mitchell could make a reply, the computerized voice of his personal computer interrupted their conversation. "General Mitchell. You have an incoming call. Priority One."

Mitchell immediately sat up and straightened up his tie. I would not be good at all to appear like a slob, especially on a Priority One video call.

Somerville did the same, gathered his Combination Cover and prepared to walk out the door. If this was a Priority One call, it probably was something that was urgent for Mitchell to deal with. If he stayed around, he would not only impose on Mitchell, but if something classified was going on, unless he needed to know, he should not be here.

"Mitchell here," the General said, talking to the newly activated monitor on his desk. Somerville being on the other side of his desk couldn't see who was on the other side of the line, nor should he know.

"Is Captain Somerville there? We called the _Archer_ and the watch Officer said that he was with you," said the voice on the other line.

"Yes sir, he is. Just one second." Mitchell shifted his gaze to Somerville, who was just about to leave his office. "Its for you."

"Captain Somerville here," he said, now standing behind Mitchell, ten seconds later.

"Captain this is Admiral John Mackenzie, CINCEXPED. (2) What's the status on your ship?"

"Sir, my men are on leave right now. However if I recall them now, we can take off in the next twenty minutes if need be," Somerville replied.

"Captain, I want you and your ship in orbit within the next ten minutes," ordered the Admiral.

"Yes sir. May I ask what is going on?"

"One of our Special Operations teams needs immediate extraction. Your ship is the closest one and is the only one that could get them out in time. I'll give you the details once you're in orbit."

"Yes sir," Somerville replied.

The Admiral then cut the connection.

Somerville turned to Mitchell. "Do you if I use your console?"

"Not at all," Mitchell said, getting out of his seat, allowing the Captain to sit down.

Somerville transmitted a call, voice only to the _Archer_.

"Commander Fujimaki here," answered his XO on the second ring.

"Commander this the Captain. What's the status on the ship?"

"Sir, we are recalling all personnel who have chosen to take leave Right now we have about 20 of the crew on board."

"How soon can all of them get aboard?"

"Those who can arrive in three minutes or less have been ordered to board the ship. Otherwise we'll beam them up when we reach orbit."

"Excellent."

"When can we lift off?"

"Commander Molotov has informed me that we should be able to liftoff in less than eight minutes. We got the call from Expeditionary Command two minutes before you did."

"Excellent. Do you have a lock on my beacon," he asked, referring to the microchip implanted underneath his collarbone, which allowed the Government to track his whereabouts. While the Constitution forbid tracking via microchip, or any other implant, Military Personnel whether they were retired or active duty were exempt.

"Yes sir. We'll beam you up in ten seconds."

"Good luck and Godspeed Captain," Mitchell said.

"Thanks. Looks like I will need it," Somerville said before disappearing in a flash of light.

Author's Notes:

(1)- Naval Speak for Wall

The Terran Navy derives its traditions from the Navies of Pre War Earth. However the majority of its traditions come from Western sources especially that of the former United States and the United Kingdom as the Navy is disproportionably made up of Westerners. Western nations all have Navies, which unlike an Army is not found in nearly every country on Earth. The United States, for the last fifty years has had the largest Navy in the world, so it would not be such a leap of faith to assume that the Terran Navy has a large percentage of Americans in it. The Officer rank structure of the Terran Navy is heavily British oriented while the Enlisted Personnel structure are mostly American influenced.

(2)- Commander-in-Chief Expeditionary Command.

**Naval Ranks**

**Flag Officers**

Admiral of the Fleet (Ceremonial Rank, can only be held during times of great crisis)

Fleet Admiral

Admiral

Vice Admiral

Rear Admiral

Commodore (Commodores are treated as Flag Officers but in reality they are more akin to Senior Captains)

**Senior Officers**

Captain

Commander

Lieutenant Commander

**Officers**

Lieutenant

Sub-Lieutenant

Ensign

**Senior Non-Commissioned Officers**

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy

Master Chief Petty Officer

Senior Chief Petty Officer

Chief Petty Officer

**Non-Commissioned Officers**

Petty Officer First Class

Petty Officer Second Class

Petty Officer Third Class

**Enlisted Personnel**

Sailor

Sailor Apprentice

Sailor Recruit

**BC-304 Variants**

**Block I (**_**Daedalus**_** subclass)**

The Block I consisted of the _Daedalus_, the _Odyssey_ and the _Korolev_. Designed before the start of the War, the Block I units were intended to serve as all around warships and are capable of carrying 16 fighters. Currently the only ship operational in this subclass is the _Daedalus_, which is currently being used as a test bed for new technology and weapons that will be incorporated into the future Starship classes.

**  
Block IA (**_**Verdun**_** subclass)**

The Block IA is a modernized version of the Block I, outfitted with the best technology Earth can get its hands on. However the Block IA is designed to fulfill the role as a Heavy Cruiser and thus does not have the ability to carry fighters. The Block IA is armed with energy weapons, missiles deployed via a Vertical Launch System and a small armament of railguns used primarily for Point and Anti-Fighter defense. The Block IA is equally at home in the Terran Battle Line or in Convoy escort. Currently forty Block IA units are finishing construction at New Portsmouth and New Norfolk Fleet Yards, located in the First and Second LaGrange Points respectively with numerous others planned.

**  
Block II (**_**Azrael**_** subclass)**

The Block II is a unique variant of the BC-304. While the Block I and Block IA units are designed to project power in the name of the Terran Federal Republic, the Block II is meant to operate in the shadows. The Block II is primed for unconventional warfare and is meant to operate months if not years behind enemy lines. Like the Block I and IA, the Block II is armed with railguns and energy weapons. However while the Block II uses missiles, they are launched not via a vertical launch system but rather by a tube system similar to a torpedo tube. The Block II is outfitted with the best Electronic Countermeasures that the Terran Navy can get its hands on along with a Goa'uld designed, Asgard improved cloak. All of the Commanding Officers of the Block II units are former Submarine Captains, as the mission parameters demanded by the Navy are very similar to that requested of submariners in the prewar environment. The Terran Navy has built twenty units and the acquisition of future units is currently in doubt. The Navy's Admirals are hesitant about requesting more of the Block IIs until they prove their worth and for good reason, as the credits needed to procure one Block II unit could easily procure three more conventional Block IA units.


	3. Chapter 3

TFNS Archer, Briefing Room, Langaran Orbit

**First off I would like to thank Draconicflare, Drake the Archr, Utah Jak and Lightning Count for their assistance. And now on to the story.**

**Also for those wondering why updates are so slow, I'm a full time College Student taking 18 units and am working 25 plus hours a week. While I do like writing, school and work come first. Rise of the Imperium is still in in the works. Inferno has been put on hold until I flesh out this story a bit more.  
**

**Briefing Room, TFNS **_**Archer**_**, Langaran Orbit**

"Sir, we're all here," reported Somerville.

"All right then," said Admiral Mackenzie who was addressing the Command Crew via a secure interstellar connection from Earth. A flat screen mounted on the bulkhead broadcasted his image to the crew, allowing them to interact not only via audio but visually as well.

"For the last half of a year, B Company, 5th Special Operations Group has been deployed to planet P2Y-328 also known to the locals as Pythia which by our calculations is about twenty minutes away from your current position via Hyperspace."

"Before the Ori took over, Pythia was a human emerging industrial civilization, having just learned the importance of steel and the assembly line comparable to England in the early Nineteenth Century with a similar social and political structure as well. Now that the Ori own the planet, they've been using the planet to fuel their war machine and are one of the primary sources of body armor for their foot soldiers in the Milky Way.

"During their time there, B Company has conducted guerilla warfare as well as recruited and trained a resistance movement against the Ori occupiers. We've funneled a large amount of weapons and explosives to keep pressure on the local Ori garrison. They've been pretty successful and have been able to tie down a large amount of Ori warriors that could be used on the front lines and have been able to damage their factories.

"However it seems that their luck has run out. Major Rabin, the Head of B Company, reported that one of the local resistance fighters has sold them out and revealed the location of one of their main bases of operations. The Ori have sent an entire Legion, their equivalent to one of our Brigades and have encircled the area. The combined strength of the forces operating out the base Operational Detachment Alpha-1123, one of the five ODAs that make up of B Company and the remaining Resistance fighters is about Company level, making them outnumbered fifty-to-one. However luckily for them, their base is in a rugged and closed off area and the Ori can only send around one Battalion in at a time to engage them. They also possess a sizeable number of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles so the Ori can't bring in air support without risking their assets. I'm sending you the coordinates of their base and all information we have about Pythia as we speak."

"How long can they hold out?" asked Somerville, he wanted to know how long the Commando Team thought they could hold so he could plan accordingly.

"They've been engaged with the Ori for the last half an hour and estimate that they can hold out for another hour before they run out of ammunition."

"Sir, what kind of defenses does Pythia have?" questioned Drossier.

"Intelligence reports state that the Ori have at least fifteen to twenty short range fighter squadrons with a number of planetary based anti-Starship cannons."

"And what of their Capitol warships?"

"They have a small number of frigates and corvettes but no ships of the line that we know of in the area at this moment. According to the data acquired by our B Company, the Ori have one Squadron of Frigates and two Squadrons of Corvettes."

_That's a relief_, Somerville thought. The _Archer_ if need be could easily take on any Ori Frigate that happened to come across. Although chances were, the Ori might have one of their monstrous Battlecruisers in system and Somerville had no delusions about how that might turn out.

"What about proximity to any of their major Fleet Bases?"

"The nearest Ori Fleet base is about an hour to an hour and a half depending on what type of hyperdrives that they're using."

_So if we left right now, we'll have about ten minute window at the very least before any reinforcements arrive_, Somerville noted to himself. While ten minutes wasn't much, when extracting personnel from a hostile area, every second counted.

"That's all we know at the moment. Good luck Captain."

"Thank you sir," Somerville replied before the connection terminated. He turned to the rest of the Command Crew. "Gentlemen, it appears that we're going to have to come up with a plan and execute it on an extremely short time table. If you have any suggestions I'm more than welcome to hear them."

Drossier was first to speak, "Captain, given the time sensitive nature of our mission; I believe that to be successful, we are going to have to pull this off quickly."

Engelmann agreed, "We don't have the time or the ability to drop out of hyperspace at the edge of the system and slowly sneak in. First off, the local enemy garrison is probably on high alert. And second, even if we were able to sneak in by the time, we were in range to transport them out they would be either dead or captured."

"I was thinking along the same lines myself," admitted Somerville. He turned to Morales. "How close can you get us to the planet?"

"Straight out of hyperspace?" asked the Navigator.

"Yes Lieutenant."

"I can probably get us thirty seconds away from the atmosphere at the very closest."

Hyperspace jumps and reversions were usually done as far away from populated areas such as planets and space stations as possible for two reasons.

First, the closer a ship was to a large object such as a planet or a moon the more energy was required to open a hyperspace window as the gravity generated by those large objects tended to make the process a lot harder. The mass of the ship also affected the amount of power needed as well, as the higher the mass the more power was needed. A lot of ships, especially civilian ships and especially those used by less advanced civilizations had to enter hyperspace a very long distance away from any planets in the local solar system as their Hyperdrives were not as durable or capable as those used by their Military and more advanced counterparts.

Second, spacefaring nations and races had learned that opening a hyperspace window near space based structures not to even mention the in atmosphere was not a smart thing to do. The act of forcing open a gateway to another dimension in which Faster-than-Light travel was capable was not a calm and tranquil thing to do. Rule of thumb stated that for a ship to enter hyperspace without destroying or wrecking any structures it needed to be around thirty thousand times the diameter of the hyperspace window that it opened away from any of the said structures. To open a hyperspace window in atmosphere however, was beyond insane. To do so would wreck the planet uninhabitable for any life. Not even the Ori or the Wraith would do such as thing as even though there were billions of Stars out there, there were only so many planets that one could inhabit without reworking the planet's ecosystem, something that while easy took a God-awful amount of time to do properly and successfully.

"How much power will it take?"

"About 70 of the reactor's power," stated Molotov. "You will not be able to fire any shots from the energy weapons for a minute or two until sufficient power is diverted to the Energy Weapons."

"Damn," he remarked. Standard operating procedure when engaged in combat stated that power was to be siphoned on a 30-40-20-10 ratio. Thirty percent for the ship's shields, forty percent for energy weapons, twenty percent for propulsion and the final ten for life support and other miscellaneous needs. With 70 percent of the ship's power devoted to the hyperdrive, he would be not only be unable to use his primary armaments, but in addition would not have his shields at full power, thus leaving him vulnerable to enemy fire.

"I know that I am the most Junior Officer present and am only the Logistics Officer, but let me get this straight. We are going to drop out of hyperspace with our shields at a minimum, unable to fire our energy weapons right in front of the Ori defenses and somehow transport the Commandos and surviving resistance fighters into our hull and somehow escape unscathed?" asked Lieutenant Chandra skeptically.

"Do you have any other ideas?" snapped Engelmann.

"Not at the moment, but I would rather not have us blown to bits in a mission that would get us all killed without any reasonable chance of rescuing those Commandos. I seriously doubt that the destruction of our ship will allow them the extraction that we need," retorted Chandra.

Somerville swiftly intervened. "Gentlemen, enough. Remember we are _all_ on the same side here. I know that we have not been given this task with the best conditions but if we do not come up with a plan within the next couple of minutes, those Commandoes are going to be dead or even worse, captured then tortured for information and finally executed," he said, steering his Officers back on track.

"Captain, I believe that the points that everyone has made are all valid and we should not discard them, " stated Fujimaki. "I think I have an idea that would allow us to complete the mission. However it is going to require a very precise amount of timing."

"Do tell Commander," Somerville said, eager to hear what his XO was suggesting.

**P2Y-328 aka "Pythia", Unknown Location**

"Come on you miserable filth," bellowed Senior Centurion Trelar at the men under his Command. "Get out and fight."

_Ancient-damned cowards _he thought darkly to himself as he saw half the men in his Cohort cower at enemy fire. His Cohort outnumbered the combined forces of the apostate Tau'ri and the local Noble-supporting heretics eight to one and yet they still took cover. Trelar knew that if his men ever gathered whatever courage they had they could mount a charge and kill those heretics in one fell swoop. However Trelar knew that even if they did have that courage, they would probably never do so as he was sure as half of his men were secretly traitors and at the very least sympathetic to the heretics cause.

Before the Ori had arrived to take up their rightful place as the rulers of this planet, Pythia had been controlled by a small amount of aristocrats who lived lives of luxury while the rest of the people suffered. Trelar had been one of them, laboring in one of the factories until the foreman had caught him skimming off of the top. After all, since the pansies that had owned the factories had paid him so little it was only fair for him to take what he was truly worth.

When the blessed Ori had come to add Pythia to the many worlds under the Banner of Origin, he was among the first to see the light and had been one of the leaders in the blessed uprising that deprived the accursed nobles of their power personally leading a mob that sacked the Government Buildings and the homes of the rich and powerful. The Ori seeing his devotion and faith to Origin had rewarded him for his actions, granting him the rank of Senior Centurion in the Blessed Armies of Origin. To make things better, the Prior in charge of the liberation had allowed him to keep the goods that he had liberated from the unbelievers and had been given the pretty young daughter of one the now deceased nobles to serve as his concubine, the first of many.

However despite his relatively high status in the newly Origin-centered society of Pythia, it was not enough for him. He thirsted for more power and prestige, never contented. But today was his lucky day. The Lord High Marshal in charge of the Armies of Pythia had informed that whichever Cohort Commander was responsible for the death of the apostate Tau'ri and their heretical followers on this planet would be elevated to the rank of Legate his own Legion under his Command.

The Ori had been truly benevolent. The 'Elite' First Cohort of the Twenty-Seventh Legion of the Armies of Pythia had failed in their duty to slay the foe and it was up to Trelar's Second Cohort to do the job. He had no intentions of failing the task and allowing the Commanders of the other eight remaining Cohorts to get the opportunity. Trelar's faith had been solid and he would not allow it to waver in a time such as this.

He did not care how many of his men died as long as they slew the Tau'ri and guaranteed his promotion. The majority of his men were worthless rabble, not even fit to wear the blessed armor of the Holy Warriors of the Ori. In fact they would be better dead than alive as rather than leeching off supplies and food required for 'real' warriors like himself, they would become Martyrs, a status that was generous for the slime that they were.

He swore once more. It seemed as if his last execution of one of his men had not properly motivated them. Perhaps he should execute one more as it seemed that they did not get the point. After all, given the right incentive even scum would do what was necessary to ensure their survival?

He relented. He would be generous this time and would encourage his men by encouragement via his gallant words. After all one had to use positive reinforcement once in a while? If that didn't work, he could always turn back to his old methods.

"At the-"

He never got to finish that sentence as at that very same moment, three armor-piercing 6.5mm x 39mm rounds penetrated his helmet and entered his skull, killing him instantly.

Senior Centurion Trelar would never become a Legate. His newly acquired property and wealth that he had worked so hard to achieve was quickly given to his successor, who like him would only hold on to it for a short while. He like Trelar would be slain, although this time by the order of a Marshal, whose orders he had failed to complete.

_Another one bites the dust _thought Captain Jonathan O'Neill II, Terran Federal Special Operations Force and the Commander of ODA-1123, B Company of the 5th Special Operations Group as he fired the last rounds of his magazine from his FN SCAR at yet another Ori Warrior.

O'Neill swore underneath his breath as he took cover in his current position to reload his Masada with a fresh magazine. No matter how many of those fuckers he killed, it seemed as if twenty more seemed to take their place and while this collection of prefabricated huts and shacks that masqueraded as a base did have a large supply of ammo, he doubted that there was enough to kill all of the Ori bastards on this planet.

The day had gone quickly gone to hell in a hand basket and it wasn't even ten o'clock local time yet.

O'Neill, his platoon and the local resistance fighters had woken up early this morning to find out that Larthan, a senior member of the resistance had sold them out. O'Neill didn't know what the Ori had offered him in exchange for his cooperation and he didn't care. While O'Neill was able to locate and destroy the transmitter that gave away their location to the local Ori forces, it was too late. A UAV had confirmed that a large number of Ori warriors were bound for their position and would arrive shortly.

With no time to evacuate the area, the location of their 'base' was in a remote area that had only one way in, O'Neill and the local resistance fighters had opted to stand their ground and hope that Earth would send someone to extract them from the planet. However O'Neill and the rest of ODA-1123 knew that the odds of Earth sending help in time were slim. Earth was three hours away even via hyperspace at top speed.

They'd done a pretty good job at killing as many of the enemy as possible. Ever since the firefight had started, for every resistance fighter or Commando that they had lost, they had avenged their comrades' death with the deaths of ten Ori warriors. Despite this however, the Ori would eventually win. What they didn't have in quality they made up for in quantity and vastly outnumbered ODA-1123 and their allies to the point that defeat was inevitable.

However they did have a contingency plan. Upon their insertion to Pythia, ODA-1123 had brought with them, one small low yield tactical warhead. If help didn't arrive in the next hour or so, they'd detonate the nuke, killing as many of the Ori bastards as possible and ensuring that they and their allies would not be taken alive.

Although he was only the biological age of twenty-two and had only been 'alive' for the last six, O'Neill was not afraid of dying. He'd seen and experienced enough, much more than any other twenty-two year old would ever endure. As a clone of General Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill himself, he possessed the memories of the older O'Neill up until the point in which Loki had abducted the 'real' Jack and his subsequent 'birth'. Memories which were so clear in his mind, that he had thought that he had experienced them himself and even to this day had trouble separating the memories that had been implanted into him and those that he had experienced himself. While he like almost any being wished to live another day, if it required his death to win the war, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Besides, he would rather die doing what he loved best, operating in the field. He'd rather be here than in Washington, like the 'other' Jack was, dealing with the Politicians and managing the Armed Forces. After all, unlike Politicians at least the Ori were honest about their intentions.

With his rifle now fully loaded, rose up from his the small boulder that shielded him from enemy fire, taking great care to expose as little of his frame as possible to take another shot.

O'Neill spotted an Ori warrior about fifty meters away from him, way too close for his comfort and took aim through his Aimpoint CompM4 red dot sight mounted on top of his rifle. A tenth of a second later, he fired three round burst dropping yet another Ori Warrior.

_At least those new 6.5 Grendel rounds are working like the manufacturers said they would. _He thought thanking whoever the hell was responsible for ensuring that at least one thing went right today.

Back in late 2006, Earth's Special Operations Forces had found that the 5.56mm x 45mm fired by the Terran Military's standard issue Heckler and Koch HK416 Assault Rifle were nearly combat ineffective against Ori Warriors.

5.56mm x 45mm also known as 5.56 NATO had been developed during the Cold War by the Western powers to engage the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. It was light, small, accurate at long distances and rather easy to carry compared to the older and heavier 7.62mm x 51mm round. However most importantly, rather than being designed to kill the enemy, 5.56 NATO was it intended to wound the enemy. The Western powers had reasoned that against a 'normal' enemy, it was better to wound them rather than to kill them. For every enemy soldier that was wounded, it took four of his or her comrades to get him or her to safety removing them from the Battlefield and unable to engage friendly forces. Thus it was much more combat effective to wound the enemy rather than to kill them.

However while was this was good against a rational enemy. It didn't work that well against suicidal religious maniacs who didn't care if they lived or died. The 5.56 round did not have the stopping power to ensure that when the enemy got hit, they would not get up and resume fighting.

Many Special Forces Operators, especially those of Russian, Eastern Bloc and Chinese background did not like the fact that they had to expend half of a magazine to kill an armored Ori warrior. Much to the embarrassment of the Ministry of Defense, many Special Operations Teams began to ditch the newly developed HK416 in favor of older weapons like the FN FAL, the M14 and the AK-47 that fired heavier rounds with greater stopping power.

What was needed was a round that kept the beneficial characteristics of the 5.56 NATO round, especially its accuracy and its lightweight but with the stopping power of larger rounds such as 7.62 NATO or 7.62mm x 39mm Soviet. As a result, the Terran Military had opted to replace the 5.56 NATO round with the 6.5mm x 39mm Grendel round. 6.5 Grendel was the middle ground between 5.56 NATO and 7.62 NATO, keeping the best attributes of both rounds. It was accurate and although heavier than 5.56 was lighter than 7.62 rounds but carried much more kinetic energy. Although it meant that Terran soldiers could only carry 25 rounds per magazine as opposed to 30, it was deemed acceptable as 25 6.5 Grendel rounds were much better than 30 5.56 rounds.

Heckler and Koch had listened to the complaints by Earth's Special Operations personnel and had responded to their complaints by informing the Chief of Staff of the Special Operations Force that the newest version of the HK416, the HK416A1 would use the newly instated 6.5 Grendel round instead of the older 5.56. However the problem was that Heckler and Koch had also planned on adding other improvements into the design of the A1 variant making A1 not available for another six months at the very least. While this was fine for the other four Branches of the Military, as other than a small number of advisors deployed abroad, the majority of their personnel was still stationed on Earth and was still in training. The Special Operations Force however was a different story. The majority of its personnel were deployed across the Galaxy buying as much time for Earth to build up its conventional forces as possible and needed a weapon that could fire 6.5 Grendel immediately.

Fabrique de Nationale de Herstal, one of Heckler and Koch's competitors had smelled blood in the water and pounced on the opportunity and offered to manufacture a modified version of the FN SCAR that was capable of firing the new 6.5 Grendel round. The FN SCAR had been intended for use by the former United States for its Special Operations Units and upon the formation of the Terran Federal Republic had been shelved in favor of the HK416. The Special Operations Force had readily accepted the offer, and by the time the HK416A1 began to roll off the assembly lines, the FN SCAR was already in widespread use by the Special Operations Force.

"Captain," said a young man in his early to mid twenties positioned five meters to O'Neill's right, who was armed with an RPK-74 Light Machine Gun. "When is this help of yours going to arrive? I doubt we can hold on much longer,"

"I don't know Rejik," O'Neill replied to the unofficial leader of the local cell of Pythian resistance fighters.

"Well if we cannot escape, I guess taking down as many of the bastards as possible will have to do," he responded with a toothy grin.

"I guess so," O'Neill replied. Even after having extensive experience with combat some first hand and others inherited via memory, its effects on people still amazed him. Rejik had changed drastically over the last six months, transforming himself from the angst filled, vengeful firstborn son of a slain member of Pythian Nobility to the battle-hardened charismatic resistance fighter and leader that he was today.

O'Neill's senses tingled, his instinct urging him to duck. Years of combat experience as well as genetic tinkering by Loki, the renegade Asgard scientist that had cloned him had honed his senses nearly to the point of pre-cognition. Quickly O'Neill ducked behind the small boulder once more.

Not more than a second later, a large energy blast whizzed by over his head and impacted ten meters behind him, destroying a large cluster of trees. If he hadn't ducked, he would have been dead.

O'Neill quickly poked his head up above the boulder, taking great care only to reveal a small part of his head, trying to find the source of that energy blast.

He swore once more once his head was behind the boulder. The Ori were starting to get smart and had begun to erect heavy weapons platforms about eight hundred meters from his position. To make things worse, O'Neil knew that they were out of his weapons range, leaving him unable to deal with the emplacements.

However just because he couldn't deal with them didn't mean that the heavy weapons platforms were invulnerable. He keyed the radio headset mounted underneath his combat helmet. "Dmitri, take out that heavy weapons platform eight hundred and twenty meters and fifteen degrees Northwest of your position," he ordered speaking through the mike.

"_Da_, Comrade Captain," said Sergeant First Class Dmitri Pskov, the Platoon's sniper.

Seconds later a series of sharp crack like noises were audible despite the tremendous amount of noise generated by the firefight. After all it was pretty hard not to notice a .50 caliber round going off.

"Targets down Comrade Captain. Do you need anything else?"

"No Dmitri. Just keep up the good work like usual," O'Neill radioed back before peering up again. He could see that he heavy weapons platform was now a smoking cinder, and the warriors who were manning it were most certainly dead. After all it was kind of hard to be alive and well when you didn't have a head. The Russian was an artist with a sniper rifle and had killed at least thirty Ori warriors with his Accuracy International AS50 .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle in this firefight alone.

A loud boom informed him that a group of unlucky Ori warriors had set off one of the tripwire rigged Claymore mines that ODA-1123 and the Partisans had set up around the base. O'Neill figured that there was probably nothing left of them now, those things had 700 .125 inch steel balls in that would cause a God-awful amount of shrapnel when detonated. O'Neill mentally shrugged, the more Ori Warriors that died via claymore was the less he would have to deal with later on.

"Sir," interrupted a new voice on his headset, belonging to Chief Warrant Officer 3 Li Hong, the Second-in-Command of ODA-1123, "we are running low on ammunition. I don't think we can hold them for another twenty minutes."

"All right then," O'Neill replied. "Chaucer, arm the warhead. Set the timer for fifteen minutes."

"Yes Captain," replied Staff Sergeant Mathew Chaucer, the Platoon's Demolitions expert. Unlike the rest of the Platoon or the Partisans who were engaged with the enemy, Chaucer was inside the most secure part of the base and was in charge of guarding the nuclear warhead that the Platoon had brought along. If things went to hell, he would be the one to arm it and ensure its detonation. "Warhead armed, detonation in ten minutes and counting," he said a moment later.

"Well we only have ten minutes to live, let's make the most of it," O'Neill ordered before resuming the fight with his FN SCAR.

**CIC, TFNS **_**Archer**_**, Pythian System**

"Sir, we are due to drop out of hyperspace in the next forty-five seconds," reported Gonzales.

"Thank you Lieutenant," Somerville replied. For once in his life, he was glad that he was wearing a vacuum suit. While it was not only uncomfortable but hard to move around in as well, it did have one benefit. The suit while not as large or bulky as the space suits used by the pre-War National Space Agencies, did cover up his entire body, hiding the fact that he was drenched with sweat.

He keyed the button on his console that would allow everyone to hear across the ship, via the ship's communications network. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, remembering that the crew a very small number of female sailors, "while we have only been together for a short time, I am pleased to say that I am honored to serve with every single one of you. You all are everything that a Captain can ask for. May providence be with us and fate be kind to us."

He scratched his head, running his hands through his brown hair. While the entire crew was suited up, none of them had opted to put on their helmets on as not only was it ever more uncomfortable as it was the size of a motorcycle helmet, designed to fit snugly to the user's head, but it would start to drain their suit's limited supply of air.

He took a deep breath, knowing that this very well be the very last breath of 'fresh' air that he would take. The ventilation system on the _Archer_ was much better than the ones on the Nuclear Attack Submarines that he had served on, although nothing could compare to the fresh air one could breathe when stationed dirt side.

He grabbed his helmet that was sitting on the deck in front of his seat and put it on. He could hear the faint _hiss_ informing him that the helmet was sealed to the suit and that if the ship's hull was breached or life support failed, he would still be able to operate.

His Heads Up Display mounted on the visor of his helmet activated, seconds later showing his vital signs and the amount of air still left in the suit. A low beep informed him that his helmet had been synchronized with the ship's internal communications system, allowing him to communicate with everyone despite the fact that his mouth was covered up by his helmet, not allowing the noises generated his larynx to be heard by anyone not connected to the ship's internal network.

"Ten seconds until reversion."

Somerville fastened and secured the restraints on his Command Chair, ensuring that in extreme turbulence, he wouldn't fall out of his seat.

"Reverting to hyperspace."

"Sir," reported Engelmann. "Sensors detect fifteen, one-five contacts, all of them assumed to be hostile According to our database, they're Ori Frigates."

"Designate contacts as Sierra-One to Sierra-Fifteen from their distance to our current position," he ordered. "What is their range?"

"The ETA for the closest Frigate will reach to our current position is around five minutes. Given their trajectories, I suspect that while they do know that we are here but they do not know our current position."

Somerville nodded. With the Archer's ECM set to maximum, he doubted that the Ori could know exactly where he was. If they could, then the massive amount of funds that the Terran and Asgard Governments had spent developing the Block II variant would have been wasted. If that were to happen, Somerville had no doubt that he and his ship would have a hard time getting out of there alive.

"And the ground-based guns?" While the Planetary Defense Centers were fixed in place, and were not mobile, he was sure that they would ruin his day just as well if not more than the Ori Frigates in system.

"Well the intelligence given to us my EXPEDCOM has proven to be correct. I'm reading five Planetary Defense Centers, two in the Northern Hemisphere, one on each Continent, and the rest on the sole large continent on the Southern Hemisphere. However that's all I can get at the moment, the Ori have employed a lot of interference in the area, so I can't get an accurate sweep. However I do believe that like the Frigates they do not have a lock on us. However given the magnitude sensors on the PDCs, I estimate they will have a lock on us in the next five minutes."

_Fuck_, he swore mentally. If the Ori PDCs got at lock on him, he wouldn't know until right after they fired on him. Given the distance between him and the PDCs as well as the fact that all energy weapons traveled at the speed of light, it meant that he would have little or no time to react. He'd have to rely on the _Archer_'s ECM for the entire time, for as good as the shields were, getting hit with the main gun of a Planetary Defense Center would guarantee the _Archer_'s destruction.

He sighed. "Are the port and aft tubes ready?"

"Yes sir, ready and loaded."

"Fire tubes six through nine at five second intervals at my command."

"Aye sir."

Somerville did his best to keep his breathing at a steady pace. Even though he had seen combat before, namely serving aboard the old HMS _Conqueror_ when she sank the _General Belgrano_ during the Falklands War more than two decades ago and a couple of fire fights with enemy Jaffa under the service of Anubis alongside before the disclosure of the Stargate and the formation of the Republic, he had never done anything his audacious in his life.

Hyperspace transitions were not peaceful events by a long shot and often caused massive interference with sensors, although with Asgard and Ori sensors the effects were not as bad, although they were still present. Commander Fujimaki's plan called for the _Archer_ to take advantage of this to the fullest. Shortly after the Archer would exit hyperspace, it would launch four sensor decoys, each programmed to masquerade as a BC-304 Block I via the _Archer_'s port and starboard tubes before activating its cloaking device. It was hoped that the Ori would focus all of their attention on those decoys, not knowing that they were in fact a distraction and would allow the _Archer_ and her crew to slip by unnoticed and extract the Commandos and their supporters from Pythia without the Ori knowing until it was too late.

Somerville decided that it was now or never. "Mark," he said quietly as if he was afraid that the Ori could hear him.

"Aye sir. Tube six has been launched," reported Drossier. "Tube seven has been launched," he said five seconds later. "Tube eight has been launched…Tube nine has been launched," he concluded.

The design of the sensor decoys was similar to the Mk VIII missile, and had the same propulsion system and general design. However while the Mk VIII had a naquahdah-enhanced nuclear warhead, the decoy traded this for a large transponder that broadcast its position and 'identity' to all of known space.

"Activate cloak," he ordered, now that the decoys were launched.

"Cloak activating," Engelmann said, working on his console, "Cloak is now active."

Fujimaki watched from his console located at Somerville's left. "It seems as if the enemy has taken the bait."

"Sir, we've lost contact with one of the decoys it appears that it was destroyed."

"How and where?" asked Somerville, wondering whether the PDCs or the Ori Frigates were responsible.

"Telemetry suggests that the killing shot came from one of the PDCs based in the Southern Continent. Based on sensor readings, I would guess that our shields might be able to take two maybe three if we had all power devoted to shields before collapsing."

Somerville bit back a grimace. The Commandos and their indigenous supporters were located on the Southern Continent and while the PDCs were unable to fire on objects in the atmosphere, the cannon could not retract that low, it was more than capable of hitting the _Archer_ when it was making its escape.

"What's their rate of fire?"

"Given the intelligence that we have, I'm going to guess from one shot per every forty-five seconds to two minutes."

Somerville frowned. If Engelmann's calculations were correct it meant that if the Ori coordinated their fire, something that they would most certainly do, the PDCs would be able to fire one shot at ship per fifteen seconds in the worst case scenario and every forty in the best. This however did not count the Ori Frigates in orbit waiting to kill him and his crew; nor did it take into account the possibility that the intelligence Earth had gathered was faulty and that the PDCs were able to fire at a much faster rate.

"Thank you Lieutenant," Somerville replied, not liking the answer. "Lieutenant Ross," he addressed the Officer in charge of the Helm, "take us in for orbital reentry."

Somerville had hoped to get out of hyperspace, beam the Commandos and their supporters out and escape into hyperspace, without anyone knowing until it was too late. However according to EXPEDCOM, the Ori had transporter jammers in their inventory in mass numbers, preventing him from doing this. With this option out of the question, it meant that in order to transport them out, he and his crew had to get into his transporters drastically shortened range via entering Pythia's atmosphere that was by far more risky and perilous.

**Pythia**

O'Neill grunted as he took aim with his sidearm, an FN Five-Seven firing another 5.7mm x 28mm round downrange into the head of an Ori Warrior that was too close for comfort.

His FN SCAR lay on the ground, discarded and unused. He had run out of ammo, having used up the last of his stash of 6.5mm x 39 mm rounds two minutes ago and right now it was as useless as a rubber crutch.

He frowned. With the loss of his SCAR, his engagement envelope had shortened from 600 meters to half that. While this was still superior to that of the staff weapons used by the Ori, which cut out at about 100 meters if they were lucky, O'Neill liked to have as much distance between him and the Ori as possible. To make things worse, his pistol although having a lot better stopping power than other commonly used Pistol Rounds such as 9mm NATO or .45 ACP, was still inferior to the 6.5mm rounds used by his SCAR.

O'Neill ducked once more, frowning. In a firefight, especially in an open field pistols were vastly inferior to rifles or carbines. In order to kill an enemy Ori Warrior, he had to empty five to seven rounds into the bastard's torso, nearly half of the ammunition in his magazine. And while he didn't mind taking down those insane religious maniacs, after all someone had to do it, he was rather low on ammunition at the moment.

A large boom interrupted his thoughts. Apparently some Ori Warriors were unfortunate enough, well lucky for him and his allies to set off one of the many tripwire-rigged claymore mines that they had set up for this very scenario. Hopefully the Ori who set off the mine were unlucky enough to be clustered up when it blew. Each claymore mine held 700 small steel balls, each an eight of an inch in diameter, which would travel 1,200 meters per second towards the enemy when the mine blew, making it perfect against large groups of enemy soldiers. If one was hit, odds were that there wasn't going to be much left of them.

"Captain!" yelled Rejik over the din of firefight. Firefights were nothing if not loud. "They've breached the first perimeter."

O'Neill checked his watch, and swore. They still had five minutes to go and at this rate, the Ori would be able to breach the base's entire defenses and would be able to get to Chaucer and the bomb before it detonated. While the warhead was tamper proof and was programmed to explode prematurely if messed with, O'Neill didn't want to take any chances.

He conducted a quick mental check of his assets. He still had his pistol, with ten rounds remaining as well as two more magazines, each carrying twenty rounds. He also had a knife, equipped with a blade sharp enough to cut through Ori Armor in a single jab, a gift from the Asgard. Although if he did have to use it, it meant that he was really screwed. Thankfully, all of his protective gear, his helmet, protective glasses, and his assault vest were all intact. While he didn't have everything that he wanted, he concluded that it could always be worse.

He keyed his headset. "All units fall back to the final perimeter," he ordered.

Rejik opened his mouth to protest but O'Neill cut him off. "We'll do no good if we're cut off and overextended. We'll be better off if we consolidate ourselves and regroup. Besides we'll have a steady supply of ammunition."

Rejik nodded. Like O'Neill his RPK-74 was out of ammunition.

"I'll cover you. On my command," he ordered. While O'Neill had his pistol, Rejik had only his RPK and was literally naked, defenseless against the Ori.

"Rodger that."

O'Neill quickly swapped out his magazine for a fresh one. "Go," he ordered as he rose up once more and began firing. Rather than taking the time to aim at a specific enemy O'Neill fired in the general direction in hopes of keeping their heads down and allowing Rejik to retreat to a safe distance.

A single click informed him that his magazine had run dry and O'Neill quickly ducked behind the small boulder once more. He turned around and saw that Rejik had been lucky and had been able to fall back eighty or so meters before wisely choosing to take cover once more.

However O'Neill was in a bind. By the looks of it, Rejik had left his RPK behind when he withdrew, after all it would be only dead weight when he ran and even if the Pythian did have it, he couldn't lay down covering fire for him as he withdrew. _There's no use crying about split milk_, he told himself as he prepared himself for the short sprint that would be either the cause of his death or allow him to live a few minutes longer.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted his weight and just started to run.

However at that very second, O'Neill, the surviving members of ODA-1123 and the remaining resistance fighters all disappeared in a flash of light.

**CIC, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Sir, extraction complete," reported Engelmann.

"Excellent Lieutenant," complemented Somerville, satisfied with the results.

"Enemy fighters vectoring towards our position sensor's are detecting two squadrons worth, twenty-five total. ETA two minutes."

Somerville nodded. The use of transporters, especially behind enemy lines was not something to be taken lightly. Given the precise nature of transporting something from one exact location to another and amount of energy used to transport something meant that anyone with a halfway decent sensor network could not only figure out what was going on, but determine the exact location of the ship that was. Given that the Ori had a very good sensor network, it meant that they not only knew that the four had been set up but had a very good idea about the precise location of the _Archer_. "Ignore them," he ordered. Choosing to engage the fighters was both foolhardy and stupid as the longer the Archer stayed in the atmosphere, the odds of its escape into friendly territory lowered dramatically. "Lieutenant Ross, get us into orbit as soon as possible."

"Aye aye, Captain."

**Brig, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Ouch," O'Neill rubbed his tailbone as he sat down on the cool metal deck of what appeared to be a ship. While he was used to transporters, being transported without any warning at all was disorienting for even the most experienced and it didn't really help that he had been running, causing him to fall straight on his ass when he had rematerialized wherever he was right now.

He took a look around to assess his situation and found that he was not alone. Alongside him were the surviving members of ODA-1123 and the Pythian Resistance cell that they had been working with. To his relief, he saw that the remaining members of ODA-1123 Chaucer, Li and Pskov along with Rejik had all survived.

He continued to look around him. Apparently they were confined in some sort of enclosed room with a heavily enforced hatch that sealed them off from the rest of the ship. If O'Neill had to guess, it was probably the ship's Brig, or whatever his rescuers/captors called it.

O'Neill was puzzled that he or anyone else had not had any interaction whatsoever with the ship's crew. This was good and bad. At least there hadn't been anyone to disarm him or his men, preparing them for interrogation and possibly torture. But at the same time, he didn't know what was going on or what would go on leaving him in the dark to what was going on.

He decided to take charge of the situation. "I want everyone to check themselves and each other for wounds and any other injuries."

Following his own orders, O'Neill patted himself down. More often than not, many people he included were so full of adrenaline that they didn't even know that they were wounded until the fight was over. From his own experience he knew that the adrenaline was just staring to fade away and fatigue was just about to set in on everyone.

He gave a sigh of relief. While his fatigues and combat gear were a bit warm, even a near miss one could still feel the heat generated by energy weapons, other than a few superficial cuts and bruises, he was perfectly fine. Unlike Terran weapons, which fired small projectiles into the body, you could easily tell if an Ori Staff Weapon had hit you as you were either dead or were missing a limb.

"Sir," said Li, "We have a dozen moderate to heavily wounded partisans. While their condition is stable, if they do not get Medical attention soon they will die."

"Damn," he swore, while each surviving member of ODA-1123 was proficient in First Aid, ODA-1123's assigned Medic, Staff Sergeant James Gates had died two months ago during a raid on one of the major factories in ODA-1123's Area of Operations, leaving them without a dedicated Medic and right now that was what O'Neill needed desperately at the moment.

"Captain, I do believe that we do have some Semtex on us. We could try to blow the door," Rejik offered.

"I would advise against that course of action," said a new voice, with a prominent feminine sounding Irish Brogue via the speaker.

O'Neill's eyebrows rose, his senses alert and heightened. While he did not know every single member of the Pythian resistance, he did know that none of them due to the Pythian language being similar to that spoken in Ancient Greece, producing pseudo-Mediterranean accents or any member of his team spoke in such a manner. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant and _Doctor_ Claire Keating, Terran Federal Navy at your service. You and your companions are currently aboard the TFNS _Archer_, the Brig to be exact. Can I have your name?"

O'Neill's brow furrowed in thought. Like the rest of ODA-1123 and B Company, he hadn't been on Earth for over half a year. While he did know that Earth was beginning to build up a real Space Navy, being in the Special Operations Force, he didn't know and didn't need to know the specifics or the timetable to the Naval component of Earth's Military build up, meaning that he didn't know if she was legit or not.

On the one hand, he did know that as of six months ago the only ship active in the Terran Navy was the _Daedalus_. Earth particularly the Special Operations Force was relying on the Asgard for insertion and extraction to and from enemy territory until the Terran Navy procured and produced appropriate ships. In fact B Company had been inserted to Pythia via an Asgard Beliskner particularly modified for that purpose. Adding to his suspicions was the fact that there was no way a Terran vessel could have responded that fast to his distress call within that time period as Earth was too far away from Pythia at maximum speed.

Yet on the other hand, a part of him told him to trust her. He hadn't been on Earth for the last half of a year and logically speaking things would have changed as he did know that when he had left Earth, a small number of ships were nearing completion and this one, he didn't want to call it the _Archer_ until he knew that it was legit, could be one of them. Besides an Irish Brogue was pretty hard to fake.

"Captain Jonathan O'Neill, Terran Federal Special Operations Force," he replied, choosing not to reveal the name of his unit. "Can you show yourself?" he asked. Right now, the people on the other side of the door held all of the cards. If they chose to do that, it would help to establish their legitimacy in O'Neill's eyes.

There was a slight pause, short enough that it wasn't obvious but long enough for O'Neill to notice before responding, "I'm going to open the hatch in fifteen one-five seconds. Tell your men not to open fire. He guessed that she was either asking for approval by a superior or deciding for herself whether or not to pursue that course of action.

"Do as she says," he ordered his men and the partisans. If she was legit and hopefully she was, if a firefight were to occur due to an itchy trigger finger, things would become very nasty, very quickly. He didn't even want to think about the consequences.

True to her word, the door began to open, albeit slowly, in order to keep any one inside the Brig from being startled and revealed a woman who he assumed to be Lieutenant Keating.

Like him and the rest of the men under his command, she was wearing a Woodland Terran Camouflage Pattern Battle Dress Uniform, which was standard issue for the Terran Military and was based upon the MARPAT pattern developed by the US Marine Corps. However unlike O'Neill's that was almost worn out after months of constant use in the field and had several holes in it, hers was nearly brand new and come to think about it probably was.

On top of the BDU was a matching Ballistic Vest, designed to protect the wearer from both shrapnel and enemy fire, similar to the one that he wore. However unlike him, she did not have any tactical webbing or any additional gear and necessities that were used everyday combat operations mounted on her vest.

Her head remained bare, unlike his, which at the moment was covered by a helmet and a radio headset underneath, her scarlet locks dropping down to the nape of her neck.

Behind her he could see six additional personnel who were similarly attired, taking up positions behind her. Although they were wearing helmets and were armed with M4 Carbines, O'Neill guessed that they were pre-war leftovers from the US Military now pressed into the service of the Terran Federal Republic as line units and those deployed aboard were first to be equipped with new equipment, everyone else had to make do with what they had. While he did notice that their weapons were not pointed at him or his men, they were pointed towards the ground, or the deck, to be correct in Naval parlance; they could easily bring their weapons to bear in seconds if need be. He guessed that they were part of the ship's Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure Team, VBSS for short, which was composed of regular Ship's Personnel who were given additional training to board other vessels, and to defend their own from boarders and were most commonly utilized when Marines were not available.

"Are you satisfied now Major?" she asked.

Naval Protocol demanded that on board a warship, the title Captain was to be reserved for only the Commanding Officer of that said vessel, no matter what that said Officer's 'real' rank was. Any other personnel aboard with the rank of Captain, were to be addressed as either 'Commodore' or 'Major' depending on whether or not that said person was a member of the Navy for the former or any other branch of the armed services for the latter.

"Almost. One question where are you from?"

"Cork," she replied, if O'Neill didn't know if she was from Ireland, especially with her accent, he was either one of two things, either dumb, which was unlikely, as he was an Officer in Special Operations Unit or an impostor.

"Ah. I take it you're from Ireland," he asked, stating the obvious, "the land of crap booze and lightweights who can't hold their liquor."

"Crap booze?" she asked, as if he were insane, her heritage becoming more apparent as her accent thickened. "That's a riot, coming from a Yank with the watered down piss you dare to call beer. As for calling me a lightweight"

"All right, stand down, she's legit," O'Neill quickly told his men, interrupting her rant.

"My apologies for riling you up," he told her, but I had to ensure that you were telling the truth."

Keating gave him a nasty glare before she and the rest of the VBSS team and the uninjured personnel under O'Neill's command began to move the seriously wounded to the Medical Facilities on board the _Archer_.

**CIC**

"Sir we're about to reenter orbit," reported the Helmsman.

"Good," Somerville said, calmly. He had ordered the crew to disengage the _Archer_'s cloaking device; the Ori knew that they were inside the Pythian atmosphere and keeping it on would only be a waste of power. He hoped that the ship's ECM set at maximum would be able to prevent their PDCs from getting a lock.

"Sir," said Engelmann urgently, "the Ori have figured out our general escape vector and are reassigning their assets accordingly."

"Shit," he swore. He had hoped that the enemy would not be able detect him until he was far enough away from the planet's gravitational field to make a hyperspace jump. However it seemed as if he would have to fight his way out, something that he not only did not want to do but would test the capabilities of the Block II to its limits.

"Ten seconds until reaching orbit," said Ross, updating the Captain.

"Get ready to fire the aft, starboard and port tubes at my command."

"Five…four…three…two…one. We're now in orbit."

"Fire decoys," he ordered, wanting those countermeasures deployed as soon as possible.

"Decoys away," reported Drossier.

Engelmann interrupted quickly, almost cutting the Frenchman off. "We have seven I repeat seven Ori Frigates approaching our position. ETA forty-five seconds."

"Have you acquired a firing solution?"

"No sir."

"How long."

"Any second sir."

"Captain," reported one of the enlisted technicians from his console before Engelmann could do so himself. "I have a firing solution on the lead vessel."

"Fire tubes one and four at the target."

"Aye sir," said Drossier, launching two Mark VIII missiles at the Ori Frigate. "Missiles away."

"Sir I have a firing solution on the two vessels nearest to the lead Frigate, our database has catalogued them as Sierra Seven and Sierra Twelve."

"Target destroyed."

Somerville grinned. It seemed as if the Archer had made its first kill, hopefully the first of many. While expending two missiles on a single Frigate was a bit much, a single one could probably do the job, Intelligence wasn't sure about how they would hold up to a Mark VIII. "Fire tubes two and five at Sierra Seven and Sierra Twelve respectively."

"Missiles away."

Seconds later, the vessel shook violently, rocking the entire crew. Somerville was glad that he has strapped in otherwise, he would have been launched headfirst straight into one of the bulkheads, an experience that would be fatal at the worst and would cause a severe concussion at the very least.

"Report," he ordered, glad that he was using his suit's oxygen supply. Several of the consoles had crashed and smoke was beginning to spew out of them. While the air scrubbers would be able to deal with it eventually, right now it wasn't a good idea to breath the air.

"Shields are down to fifteen percent. Apparently, three of the PDCs were able to get a lock on us and hit us simultaneously. Damage control teams are on their way as we speak."

"Shit," he swore. While the shields could easily take the hits, one with an appropriate time spaced in between each hit, being hit almost simultaneously increased the damage incurred by the ship almost exponentially. He and his ship needed to get out of here fast.

"How long until we can jump to hyperspace?" he asked Gonzalez.

"Ninety seconds sir."

He swore under his breath. Ninety seconds, while comparatively short, was almost an eternity right now. He wouldn't be surprised if they could last for another thirty.

He keyed the button on his console, connecting him with Commander Molotov in the Reactor Control Room. "Commander, I want all power diverted from energy weapons to our sublight and hyper drives."

"Sir?" asked the Engineer, wanting confirmation.

"You heard me."

"Aye sir," he responded, "diverting power."

"Captain, with all due respect," Fujimaki interrupted, "we are going to be almost completely unarmed against those ships."

"Commander, our objective is to get out of here, not to take on those ships. Our loss of energy weapons is a risk that we will have to take." However his XO's concern was valid. While missiles and rail guns were excellent for long range and combat respectively, energy weapons were a ship's primary armament. Take those out of the equation and 60 to 70 of the ship's offensive capability was out of the window. He turned to his Navigator once more. "And now?"

"I can probably get us to hyperspace immediately, however there is the issue of those enemy vessels in front of us."

Somerville nodded. While the _Archer_ could open up a hyperspace window it was probably not a good idea. Going to hyperspace right now, while it would probably destroy the enemy vessels due to its close proximity to the unstable window, causing the wreckage of the said ships to get thrown all over the place at a very fast velocity and at all directions possible, or due to some random act of chance would cause them to catch the _Archer_'s wake following it into hyperspace.

"Lieutenant Ross," he addressed his helmsman.

"Yes sir."

"I want you to fly this ship through the enemy formation as if you were strapped into the cockpit of a fighter at full speed."

"Gladly sir," the Lieutenant replied with calm anticipation. While Ross was sitting in front of him, Somerville could almost see the shit-eating grin forming on his face.

Lieutenant James Ross had been a pilot for the US Navy, flying the F/A-18 Hornet until a freak accident during a training flight had caused him to loose the lower part of his right leg, which had ended his status as a pilot. However despite this, he still retained the confident almost to the point of cockiness attitude found in nearly every pilot, regardless of nationality.

Even with the internal compensators on; he could still the ship begin to accelerate as more and more power was diverted to the ship's sublight drive.

"Sir, we're going to be in range of their energy weapons."

"All hands brace for impact," he ordered. "Commander Drossier, if they get within the range of our railguns engage them at once." He turned his attention back to his helmsman, "Lieutenant Ross, remember that our first and only objective is to break past the enemy formation, to not to defeat them."

"Aye sir."

The _Archer_ rocked slightly once more. "Shields down to twelve percent."

"Come on," Somerville breathed.

"Engaging the enemy with railguns."

The ship shook again.

"Lieutenant Gonzalez, what are we able to make the jump."

"Twenty more seconds sir."

"Sir, we destroyed Sierra Five, one of their corvettes."

"Shields down to eight percent."

"Fifteen more seconds."

"Sir, we have two enemy behind us. Permission to engage via our aft torpedoes."

"Denied." Somerville replied. There was simply not enough time for the _Archer_ to launch any more torpedoes before its hyperdrive engaged.

"Ten seconds."

"Shields down to four percent."

"Engaging hyperdrive," said the Navigator. "We are now in hyperspace," said the Lieutenant.

Somerville let out of a sigh of relief. He was safe and sound, for now of course.

**Authors Notes**

**Sean Mulligan **When I meant by service jobs, I meant so called white-collar jobs such as lawyers, business owners, etc. The Ori attack on Earth wiped out a lot of Earth's economy and a lot of small business went under because of it. The big Corporations are barely breaking even at the moment. Like I said before the only industry that is doing well is the Defense Industry and the Terran Government is relying on it to keep its economy afloat at the moment. If you're used to sitting on your rear all day operating over a desk, chances are you're not going to be well suited for a manufacturing job that requires a lot of physical labor. The fact that you have to start a square one or the fact that you're competing against younger, healthier kids for the same job doesn't help that much either.

**Jay Nine **Yes the Terran Military has been completely integrated and while the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces prefer to raise new formations, as the last thing that the Government wants is to factionalize the Armed Forces; some exceptions have been made to units with a long and distinguished history such as the US 101st Airborne, the Black Watch, etc.

**Serilla **My intention isn't to cause flooding or to raise sea levels to a significant level. What I am trying to do is to hamper the Northern Hemisphere. The Northern Hemisphere is where almost all of the world's developed nations are located and the majority of its industrial and technological base. If the Northern Hemisphere was somehow drastically affected it would hurt Earth more than if the Southern Hemisphere was some how affected.

**Structure of the Terran Armed Forces**

The Organization of the Terran Armed Forces is similar to that used by the real life US Military. The Terran Military is split into two different elements the Individual Branches of the Armed Services and the Unified Combatant Commands which encompass a certain theater or function. The Individual Branches are responsible for the administration of the personnel under their control while the Unified Combatant Commands have day-to-day operational control over the very same personnel. For example NAVHOME or long way Terran Naval Forces Home reports to the Navy for Administrative and Bureaucratic purposes, it is under the operational control of HOMECOM.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest body in the Terran Military and is composed of the Heads of each of the Individual Services and is headed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the Military's Highest Ranking Officer and sole Military Advisor to the President. The Joint Chiefs, the Chairman in particular are responsible for overall strategic planning and readiness of the Armed Services.

**Individual Services**

Army: The Terran Army is the ground component of the Military and the largest. With a diverse array of units ranging from light infantry that specialize in fighting in varying extreme environments such as Deserts, or Mountain Ranges to its heavy Armored Divisions it is capable of engaging the Ori in multiple environments.

Navy: The Navy is the mobile component of the Armed Forces and is responsible for controlling the Space lanes and the transportation of ground troops from planet to planet.

Marine Corps: The Marine Corps is the assault and rapid reaction component of the Military. Marines consider themselves to be elite apart from the Army and as such have a different doctrine. Marines are responsible for establishing beachheads in planetary invasions and garrisoning Navy and Space Force Warships and Facilities, respectively. Unlike their brethren in the Army the Marines are capable of being deployed quickly to any combat zone although they do not have as much heavy equipment.

Space Force: The Space Force is in control the Fixed Orbital Defenses as well as the Fighters and bombers of the Terran Military. The Space Force and the Navy have a very close working relationship as well as an intense Interservice rivalry. In defensive actions the Navy warships and Space Force Orbital Fortresses will coordinate their actions to deter any invaders. In addition, Space Force Pilots fly off of Navy Carriers. It is not uncommon for Officers, especially pilots to transfer from one branch to another.

Special Operations Force: The Special Operations force is responsible for all Asymmetric and Irregular Operations. Rather than having each of the Armed Services have their own Special Operations capability, in order to reduce overlap and increase efficiency it was decided to create a new service to oversee all Special Operations.

**Unified Combatant Commands**

Every member of the Terran Military is assigned to one of these Commands.

Home Command (HOMECOM): Responsible for the defense of the Sol System.

Expeditionary Command (EXPEDCOM): Responsible for all units and personnel deployed outside of the Solar System.

Pegasus Command (PEGCOM): Responsible for all operations inside the Pegasus Galaxy.

Training Command (TRANCOM): Responsible for training of all new recruits in the Terran Military.


	4. Chapter 4

**White House, Washington FDC, Earth**

**February 29****th****, 2008**

President Henry Hayes sat at the head of the rectangular table sipping a glass of water as he waited for the rest of the Cabinet to arrive for their biweekly meeting.

He stared at the water inside his glass frowning as the last of the Ministers took their seat, wishing that it were something a little stronger and cursed at himself for his inability to fulfill his desires. He was the President of the Terran Federal Republic and arguably the most powerful man or person, he corrected himself on this planet. However for all the power meant nothing, as he was unable to enjoy the freedoms that many took for granted. Yes the authority and the perks of the Office was nice but with it came the responsibility and burden of leading this newly founded nation.

_No Henry_, he told himself. It wouldn't do to get drunk. While the momentary relief that the drunken stupor gave was nice, he'd pay for it dearly. He'd be even farther behind in his paperwork than before. And God forbid if the Press ever found out. He didn't even want to think about that one.

He looked up, noticed that everyone was seated and ready to begin and cleared his throat. "Let's get started from where we left off on Tuesday," he said getting down the business. Cabinet Meetings were often long and tedious and it was idiotic to lengthen them with unnecessary formalities. "Ettore?"

"To get this meeting going with a positive start, I will begin with the good news," said the Minister of Health and Human Services Ettore Alberto.

"Go ahead," Hayes said, glad that the proverbial wheels were moving.

"Recent statistics are indicating that the suicide rate is declining and if the rate decline follows the current trend, the suicide rate will reach pre war levels in half of a year."

"That's wonderful," Hayes said, genuinely pleased at the news.

To say that the Ori Assault on Earth had been catastrophic would be equivalent to saying that the Second World War was destructive. With millions dead, the financial markets collapsed and a shortage of food, there was only so much some could take before they surrendered to their despair.

The Minister of the Interior, Oleg Izotov snorted derisively. Born during siege of Stalingrad in the Second World War, or the Great Patriotic War, as it was known in Russia, he was no stranger to hardship. After serving in the Russian Army as a conscript he had transferred to the Soviet and later Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs working his way up to the top before being appointed as the Minister of the Interior of the newly formed Terran Federal Republic. Compared to the conditions that he had grown up in, the current situation while unpleasant to live in was nothing to commit suicide over let alone complain about. In his eyes, those who did were nothing but weaklings who had done the Republic a favor by dying and were better off dead. The fact that the majority of those who had ended their lives were Westerners, who had grown up in comfortable conditions did not help his perception at all.

Hayes sent Izotov a glare, warning him to drop it. While Izotov was politically powerful, being in charge of all of Earth's Internal Security Forces at the Federal level, namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Gendarmes, he was after all the damn President and Izotov's boss. And while he did govern on consensus, he had to after all; on many of an occasion he did have to remind several members of the Cabinet who was in charge.

Izotov taking the hint, changed his expression but not before sending Hayes a glare of his own.

"Please continue," Hayes said, acting as if nothing had ever happened. One of Hayes had quickly learned when he had been elected to Congress all those years ago was that to be successful one had to treat everyone as if they were your best friend, even if you privately thought that they were a complete asshole.

"However I do have bad news to report, due to an industrial mishap our monthly production of tretonin has fallen five percent from last month."

Hayes fought the urge to swear. This was not good.

Developed by scientists on Pangar via harvesting the flesh of deceased Goa'uld, the drug tretonin was capable of boosting the human immune system to a near superhuman level, allowing its user an almost 100 percent immunity to nearly every disease. Due to its properties it was considered by many to be a miracle drug. The Terran Government had set up factories to locally produce the drug to combat many infectious diseases in less developed areas where antibiotics were not available. In addition at the behest of the LGBT Community, Hayes had ordered the use of tretonin to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. However the drug did have one catch. If one used tretonin, they would have to use it for the rest of their natural lives as while the drug allowed the user to have an almost invulnerable to any form of sickness, at the same time it erased the user's entire Immune System leaving them even worse off if they stopped taking the drug.

He paused for a second; thinking of the correct, no that wasn't the right word, polite was more like it words to say. "How many people…will be affected?" he asked. _You mean how many people will die due to this fuckup?_ He thought darkly.

"Approximately ten thousand sir," replied the Health Minister evenly.

_Ten thousand people, over half of which will die due to a weakened immune system. Just what I need, more deaths to weigh heavily on my soul top of the millions that are already dead. _"What are our options?"

"Can we increase production?" asked Vice President Thabo Ombutu. A native of Africa, he had lobbied extensively throughout his career to increase funding to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.

Egon Berlitz, the Minister of War Production answered for the Italian, "Mr. Vice President we are at nearly 100 percent of our production capability. Our workers are working six days a week, working eleven hour shifts each day. They are already stretched to their limit. The only way to make up for the shortfall is to devote more parts of our Economy to Tretonin production which I would recommend against."

"Can we procure some from the Pangarans?"

"Negative Mr. Vice President," said the Minister of Foreign Relations, Chen Xiaoyi. "The Pangarans are having a shortage of tretonin themselves and have indicated that they cannot afford to sell anymore."

"What about the Tok'ra?" asked Ombutu, desperate for a solution.

"The Tok'ra don't have the resources to procure enough tretonin in significant numbers. Besides even if they did I don't think that the price that they would request would be worth it."

The Tok'ra in exchange for technical assistance had asked that the Terran Federal Government supply fresh hosts to house the Tok'ra. Obviously this was very controversial as to some this was equivalent to forcing someone to slavery. For this very reason despite being allies the Terran Government had opted to keep interactions and trade with the Tok'ra at a minimum, choosing to instead to primarily to work with the Asgard as much as possible.

"Minister Alberto," Hayes said evenly, "you said the difference in the number of people currently on Tretonin and the amount we have available is ten thousand doses am I correct?"

"Yes Mr. President," he replied, having an idea of what Hayes was about say.

"I want you to compile a list of consisting of those who will not be receiving Tretonin this year. Your sole criterion in determining this list is their level of contribution to the economy and the war effort."

"Mr. President you can't do this," implored the Vice President, looking across the table for any support.

"I already have," said Hayes, his tone of voice indicating that this discussion was closed. Other than devoting more resources, thus diverting resources from the war effort there was nothing he could do. Even if they did, there was no way that the additional factories could pick up the slack in time. Besides at least they did have a tretonin program for HIV/AIDS patients. If it were up to Geng or any other hardliner, such a program wouldn't even exist.

His mind was already cataloging those ten thousand as just names and numbers, not real living people who had hopes, aspirations and dreams. _One death is a tragedy one million is a statistic_ he grimaced remembering a quote by Stalin. As much of a bastard that Dictator was, he was right. It was much easier to look at those deaths as mere figures, not as the lives of real people, lest he go insane.

"Hiroshi?" he asked his Finance Minister changing the subject before his conscious, his damnable conscious caused him to change his mind.

"The final figures from Q4 of 2007 have come in. Our GDP growth has risen .17 percent up .12 percent from Q3," said Hiroshi Sakumoto.

Hayes nodded. The Ori assault on Earth had severely damaged Earth's economy, causing it to fall into a deep depression and while the Government was doing its best to stimulate the Economy using classical Keynesian Methods similar to those used by Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the majority of Economists predicted that it would take years if not decades until Earth fully recovered.

"The increase in our GDP growth for Q4 has mainly come from an increase in Government Spending and our Exports, particularly from the Defense Industry. Although there has been a slight increase in Investment Spending, due to the need for more Factories."

"What about Consumer Spending?"

"At the moment, Consumer Spending has stayed about the same despite our efforts to change that."

The Republic had spent over a year trying to get people to spend more money, in order to stimulate the Economy as well as increase confidence in the Market and by proxy the Government as well. Unfortunately despite their best efforts, the average person on the street wasn't willing to spend more than they needed to as it was hard enough to make ends meet. It was understandable given the circumstances but ultimately frustrating.

He mentally shrugged, knowing that he couldn't do anything about it in the near future and turned his attention to his Foreign Minister. "Xiaoyi?"

"Our negotiations with the Andari Federation over their planned acquisition of a large number of HK416 Assault Rifles have broken down and are currently in a state of deadlock," said Chen Xiaoyi, or Xiaoyi Chen the former Chinese Representative to the IOA and the current Foreign Minster for the Terran Government.

"For what reason?" asked Hayes, the last time he knew the deal was going along smoothly and was supposed to be completed within a couple of week's time.

"While the Andari Federation is impressed by the capabilities of the said rifle and do not question its quality, they are not too happy about the amount of time it would take to procure the rifles in significant numbers."

"I'm sorry but we should not drop everything and throw the entire schedule and pace of our Military buildup just to meet the needs of one of our allies, a minor one at that," said Berlitz firmly. He and rest of the Ministry of War Production along with the Ministry of Defense had spent months planning Earth's Military Buildup, the last thing he wanted was to throw it all away.

"The Andari Military does not want to wait two years to procure a significant number of HK416s."

"Tell them tough luck," snapped General Jonathan O'Neill, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While the HK416A1 had been adopted as the Terran Military's standard issue Assault Rifle a year ago however with the exception of a few units assigned to Expeditionary Command, the rest of the Military was drawing their weapons from pre-war stocks, a situation that was unacceptable in his eyes.

"The Andari Government realizes the need to procure new weapons for our own Armed Forces and has made a proposal that promises to be beneficial to both of our nations."

"Let's hear it," said Hayes, in a manner that hopefully hid his impatience. While he was usually a patient man, his time was both short and valuable; after all he was the President for crying out loud.

"The Andari Government has requested one of two things. Either a license to indigenously produce the HK416A1 or that Heckler and Koch establish a Facility devoted for the sole purpose of meeting the needs of the Andari Military."

Her response was greeted with silence. However several members of the Cabinet gave their silent disapproval.

"This is an outrage," said the Minister of Labor Bjorn Achalm. As a former head of a Trade Union, he took a very protectionalist stance. "We should not outsource our Defense Industry, our only profitable industry at the moment to other nations. Especially given our high unemployment rate the state of our economy. We should be making more jobs rather than cutting them."

"Then how will we be able to establish concrete ties with our allies with nothing but lip service and hot air?" retorted Chen, who was a staunch supporter of establishing strong ties with all of Earth's allies. It was not surprising that the two often clashed with one another at Cabinet meetings.

"We don't even know the Andari Federation that well. Can we really trust them with our latest Military equipment?"

"Given the situation, I don't think we can be that picky about our allies."

"Allies?" he snorted. "We barely even know them. Besides if we allow them to manufacture our assault rifles, what's next? Our tanks? Our missiles? Our warships? What will stop our Defense Contractors from outsourcing the entire Military-Industrial Complex to our so-called allies?"

"Enough," Hayes interrupted. While he usually preferred to stand back and watch as the conversation between Ministers took its natural course, allowing all options to be brought to the table, he knew that the arguing between the two Ministers was not only counterproductive but a waste of time as well.

He turned to Berlitz and Defense Minister Hammond. "What do you think?"

Berlitz cleared his throat. "I personally agree with Foreign Minister Chen to a point." He paused, before continuing, "The war that we are fighting as such we need to utilize as much of our resources as we can. Our industrial base while the largest and advanced in comparison to our allies is incapable of shouldering all of the war effort by itself."

Achalm interrupted. "We have not utilized all of our resources. We still have 25 percent unemployment and should utilize those resources before choosing to look outside our nation."

"Let him finish," Hayes ordered.

"While that is true as we are still creating jobs on Earth and building more and factories to meet the demand of our Armed Forces, we do have to remember the scope of the war that we are fighting and who we are fighting. This war after all is and will be a _Galactic_ wide war our planet even if we were at a hundred percent efficiency, cannot provide meet the needs of the entire war effort. We are fighting to defend the Milky Way against an enemy that can draw troops and supplies from an entire _Galaxy_ and because of this we must plan accordingly.

"While we have done miracles in terms of transitioning the remnants of our Economy into a War Economy, we still need to do more if we have any prayer of winning this war. That means utilizing the industrial base of our allies as it will not only increase aggregate production but if incase of an Ori launch raid or a full scale incursion in the Sol System, any blow to our industrial base would not be as severe. This would also take a lot of pressure on our factories, as they will not be the sole source of weaponry for much of the Allied War Effort. However at the same time, I do not believe that we should not set up facilities to build some of our more sophisticated equipment in foreign Territory due to security reasons. But in general, I do believe that this deal to be beneficial to the Terran Federal Republic and its people."

Hayes nodded, while he was a Career Politician and not a Business Executive like Berlitz had been before the war, he did have to agree that this reasoning did seem sound. "George?" he asked his longtime friend and Defense Minister.

"I do have to agree with Minister Berlitz although for different reasons," said Hammond, "As you are all aware that we have a sizeable number of personnel deployed abroad for various reasons such as defending key planets or areas, training allied troops and behind the lines harassing the enemy."

The members of the Cabinet nodded. At the moment Earth had about 120,000 personnel deployed aboard, the numbers of troops in each deployment varying with some less than fifty troops and others having tens of thousands.

"What you do not know is that even though majority of these troops are not engaged with the enemy we are having a difficult time keeping them supplied. This is due to a couple of reasons.

"First off, we are almost completely reliant on the Stargate. Ninety five percent of our supplies to our forces off world go through our two Stargates located in Iceland and the Falkland Islands. Although we have been able to synch the two Stargates, as while one Stargate is cooling down, the other one is active, allowing us to transport as much war material as possible. However our ability to transport supplies via the Stargate has reached a plateau while the demand is exponentially rising.

"Second, we have no heavy lift capacity whatsoever. We have no transports or cargo vessels in our Navy let alone a Merchant Marine. In fact the designs for the ships of our 'Gator Navy' the troopships and other vessels that are used in a Planetary Invasion as well as our transports are still on the drawing board. The only vessels that we have in our inventory are warships, a number of which have been used as transports albeit poor ones in order to meet the logistical needs of our forces and our own allies. Although when those warships were laid down, we did need them more than we needed transports.

"The fact is that we have little or no force projection capability at the moment. Why do you think the Ori are leaving us alone? It is not because they fear us. Nor is it the idea that we are powerful enough that the Ori are intimidated by us. The only reason that the Ori have decided to leave us alone is that our forces are stretched to the breaking point and are waiting for us to fatally overextend our forces, allowing them to deal with us in a swift and relatively bloodless manner.

"However I digress from the original topic. If Private Smith stationed on Pangar breaks the firing pin on his HK416 do you know how long it will take for him to receive a replacement?"

The Cabinet stayed silent not knowing the answer.

"One week. On average takes us that long to ship something from Earth to one of our forward operating bases. If we are talking about our Garrison in Atlantis it's about six times as long. While this seems like a short period of time, in a combat zone it's almost a lifetime.

"If Private Smith and his fellow soldiers were defending Pangar against an Ori invasion, our own estimates state that after a week he and his fellow soldiers would be dead as we would have no way of reliably supplying our forces in the field.

"And if that isn't bad enough, we not only have to supply our own forces but our Allies as well. Over seventy five percent of the war material produced comes from our planet. While the majority of our Allies are now beginning to pay for equipment that they are requesting, we still have to ship it to them.

"What really galls me however is the fact that even though a lot of our allies are capable of producing essential war materials due to short sighted albeit benignly intended Politics," he stared at Achalm, "are unable to contribute to the war effort and ease the strain on Earth. While I am not advocating that we allow them to procure domestically produced Fighters and Armored Vehicles for their own Militaries under license; we should at least allow them to manufacture simpler but most definitely essential items such as ammunition and Combat Helmets.

"I have said this before again and again. If we do not significantly expand our industrial and manufacturing base outside of this Solar System and include our Allies into the War Effort soon, we will loose this war due to our inability to sustain any significant Combat Operations outside of our Solar System," Hammond warned.

Hayes began to ponder. Both sides as passionate as they were both had some very good arguments backing up their point of view. While he knew that Hammond and Berlitz were probably right, the Labor Minister was right. How could he with good conscience present this deal to the people given the current Economic Condition? While the Presidency and the Executive Branch of the Terran Government was given an extraordinary amount of powers, any formal agreement between Foreign Nations had to be approved by the Legislature.

"What does Jonas think about this?"

"First Minister Quinn does not know about the Proposal," replied Chen, uncomfortably.

Hayes groaned. If it weren't for the fact that Langara contained the only deposit of Naquadriah in the Galaxy and possibly the Universe, he wouldn't have to put up with most of this shit.

Unlike Earth that had a united albeit reluctantly and newly formed One World Government, the planet had three different power blocs that had been at each other's throats for decades before contact was established. And while the three blocs, the Kelownan Hierarchy, the Andari Federation, and the Terranian Confederacy had put away enough of their differences to establish the Joint Ruling Council, headed Jonas Quinn a former member of SG-1, in reality had as much political power as the old United Nations with most of the decision making powers resting with the individual powers themselves.

And if that wasn't enough, Earth had to be very careful when dealing with the three Blocs. Even though they were 'United' under a common cause, the three were always trying to one up each other. His Administration had to be very careful when giving out Foreign and Military Aid packages lest Earth be accused of favoritism.

"James what do you think will happen if we agree to this deal?" he asked the Director of the Federal Intelligence Agency.

"I'd guess that the Kelownan Hierarchy and the Terranian Confederacy will react similarly to the Chinook Incident. Although this time the roles for the Kelownan Hierarchy will be reversed," said James Hunter.

"Shit," said Hayes to no one in particular.

A year ago, the Terran Government had offered the three Nations of Langara 180 CH-47C Chinook Heavy Lift Helicopters, sixty to each Nation as part of the Terran Government's 2007 Military Aid Package to the Planet in an effort to increase their Military capabilities.

The Kelownan Government while pleased at receiving 60 Helicopters for free, was especially interested in the CH-47D, a more advanced variant of the CH-47 and had offered to ship an extra ton of Naquadriah to Earth in exchange for receiving the D Model instead of the C.

Hayes had agreed to this, as at the time, Earth was a bit low on material for its warheads, not thinking about the possible consequences.

As soon as the other two nations had heard what was going on, they had cried foul stating that the Terran Government was playing favorites with the Kelowans. The Heads of State of the two nations had argued that in order to be fair, they too should get the CH-47D as well.

His Administration had done their best to do damage control but by that time it was too late as the Kelownans had already sent them the extra ton of Naquadriah and the CH-47Ds were being transported through the Stargate.

In an effort to hastily repair relations between other two nations, the Hayes Administration had agreed to modify the Military Aid Package so that the Andari Federation and the Terranian Confederacy would receive 30 CH-47C and 30 CH-47D Chinooks instead of 60 CH-47Cs. While the two Governments did admit that this was much better, even after a year relations between the two nations were still somewhat strained.

Hayes began to think, the politician in him trying to find a way that would benefit both parties without causing as little loss as possible. Then it hit him. "Okay this is what we'll do," he said to his Cabinet.

"Xiaoyi, I want you to end the negotiations with the Andari Federation over their planned acquisition of the HK416, say that at the moment Heckler and Koch does not have the resources to establish a factory on Andari soil let alone on Earth."

"Mr. President, that is not exactly true," interrupted Chen. "Heckler and Koch is at the moment, in the middle of establishing five more factories to meet the Military's demand as well as that of our allies."

"Then cite something else," Hayes replied, "I wasn't done speaking by the way."

Chastened, the Foreign Minister kept silent.

"What I want is for the negotiations between us and the Andari to end, I don't care how but I want them to end. However I do want you to confidentially and discretely inform the Andari Government that they will be getting what they want and more although in a different fashion than they originally intended."

Chen nodded.

"In two weeks I want Ambassador Lapierre to announce to the Joint Ruling Council as a whole that a number of our Defense Contractors are interested in establishing factories and other facilities to exclusively meet the needs of their Armed Forces as a whole. This way, the Andari will be able to acquire the HK416 either by producing it under license or having Heckler and Koch manufacture it locally and at the same time, we'll be immune to any backlash from the Kelownans and the Terranians as any complaints would have little or traction due to the fact that they too can come to the same arrangement with whoever produces their small arms. Can you do this?"

"Yes Mr. President," the Foreign Minister replied, realizing what he was doing.

"Good," Hayes said, glad that he had solved this headache. "What's next?"

"Our Allies particularly the Jaffa and the Asgard want us to accelerate the time table of our planned deployment of our Stealth Squadrons from July to as soon as possible," said O'Neill.

"General, please refresh my memory. How many ships are we talking about?"

"Our original plan was to deploy three Squadrons, a total of twelve ships of our BC-304 Block II Stealth Cruisers for asymmetric and special operations behind enemy lines."

"Original plan?" Hayes asked.

"Well at this moment, we are getting ready to deploy two Squadrons of Stealth Cruisers as well as an additional Light Infantry Brigade to supplement our forces at Atlantis at the request of Governor Weir and General Landry."

Hayes nodded, both Elizabeth Weir, his appointed Governor of Lantea and Hank Landry, the Head of Pegasus Command, had been pestering him for additional reinforcements.

"Well given the fact that the only naval assets we have at the moment are five Squadrons of Stealth Cruisers and one Squadron Corvettes, if we deployed both forces at the same time, we would have a total of five Corvettes guarding the Solar System from any external attack."

"What do you recommend then?"

"I say that we stick to the original plan and deploy two Stealth Cruiser Squadrons and the 17th Light Infantry Brigade to Pegasus and at the same time, deploy two, not three of our Stealth Cruiser Squadrons behind enemy lines, leaving one Stealth Cruiser Squadron and five Corvettes to defend the Sol System."

"Is this wise?" asked Alberto.

"I don't think we have any other choice."

"Any other choice? From what I can see, you want to deploy 80 percent of our available Cruisers outside of the Sol System, leaving us with a paltry amount of ships defending our own Territory," the Labor Minister asked skeptically.

"Look you're preaching to the choir right now," O'Neill replied, "If I had my way, I wouldn't recommend any significant deployment of ships and personnel until we had a completely modernized and capable Military, equipped with enough ships for both defensive and offensive operations, a significant number of fixed defenses, a fully capable ground force as well as an infrastructure that is able to support it.

"However if we're waiting for this to happen, we might as well ask for a Fleet of Ancient City Ships fully stocked with drones while we wait.

"Right now the Ori control 23 percent of this Galaxy and their control of the Milky Way grows larger and larger as we speak. Our current projections estimate that the Ori will be able to take over the Milky Way in the next five years. As much as I hate to say it, but we need those forces in the field yesterday."

"Can't our alien allies step it up?" asked another member of the Cabinet.

"All of our 'alien' allies are already committed to the fight. The Asgard have the majority of their fleet deployed in this Galaxy and are trying to slow the Ori advance, the Jaffa are defending their ever shrinking territory and the Tok'ra have lost half of their race infiltrating behind Ori lines. To ask them to step it up would be insulting to the extreme."

"Haven't we deployed a large number of our Commandos behind enemy lines?" asked Hayes.

"Yes we have. The Special Operations Force is completely committed to the war and is operating at fully capacity."

O'Neill paused, taking a breath. "Look I know that we've already deployed a significant number of our available assets at the moment. Hell, we have deployed almost two thirds of our Special Operations Units abroad. However we cannot just rely on small units of Special Forces personnel committing hit and run attacks like we did in the old days. According to General Dayan, the Special Operations Force is stretched to the limit. Its time for the rest of the Military to step up to the plate," he said referring to the head of the Special Operations Force.

"If we do this, it seems to me that we are going to be dangerously over extended. No offense to my colleagues here, but surely the Ori will quickly find out," observed the Finance Minister.

"It's a risk that we'll have to take," said O'Neill firmly. "Look our forces are capable and ready for action. In fact one of our ships, the _Archer_ I believe, is returning form an impromptu mission to extract one of our Special Forces teams and our indigenous allies from hostile territory."

"If it's any comfort, our yards will be completing the first batch of BC-304 Block IA Heavy Cruisers, a total of forty, in two months time, with batches two and three, each with forty Cruisers as well, ready in July and the end of the year respectively. That is on top of our _Osprey_-class Corvettes that are being produced in planetary shipyards at a rate of five every two weeks, a number that is expected to rise as the corvettes go into full scale production," replied Berlitz.

Hayes sighed; he especially hated his job during times like these. "How soon can they be deployed?"

"Two days maximum," said O'Neill.

"Do it," Hayes ordered firmly.

**Medical Bay, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"How are you doing Major?" asked Somerville, taking a seat next to the Special Forces Officer. With the _Archer_ currently in hyperspace and on its way back to Earth, he ordered the crew to stand down from Battle Stations and to begin a damage assessment. He himself had turned control of the CIC over to Fujimaki and headed down to the Medical Bay to meet his guests for the first time.

"Pretty well sir," replied the Captain or according to Naval etiquette, Major. Compared to some of the others, the younger O'Neill had gotten off pretty well, having only a small number of superficial cuts, and bruises. "Thanks for pulling our asses out of the frying pan."

"Anytime Major," replied Somerville. He paused, pondering his words. "Well not unless you could help it," he amended.

"Of course," replied O'Neill, managing a slight grin. No one wanted to be put in that type of situation willingly. "Your boys did a pretty good job. I'm impressed, especially with how your VBSS team handled things."

"Thank you. I'll convey that to Chief Brown," Somerville said modestly, referring to the head of the _Archer_'s VBSS team.

"Hell I didn't even know that you squids were even doing full time combat operations. We've been relying on the Asgard for insertion and extraction and let's just say that while they are competent at their jobs, they aren't the best of hosts. Its about time that the rest of the Armed Services began to pull your fair share of the work."

Somerville sighed, "As far as I know, the Navy has been committed to the defense of Earth and the rest of the Sol System. We're in no way shape or form ready to do be deployed to the front."

O'Neill's eyes narrowed, Somerville noticed that the younger man was beginning to tense up. "Then how the hell were you able to get there so quickly?"

"We were finishing up a routine delivery of a number of F-302s to the Kelownan Hierarchy when Expeditionary Command contacted us about your situation and ordered us to extract you and your men. Apparently we were the closest allied ship in the region," Somerville explained.

"That or Admiral Mackenzie has something to prove to the rest of our allies," O'Neill said darkly.

Somerville nodded, he knew that a large number of personnel, especially those assigned to Expeditionary Command and many of which he knew personally were chomping at the bit to go after the Ori. The fact that many of Earth's advanced allies, the Asgard, the Jaffa and the Tok'ra were already committed to the front lines and were disdainful of what they believed was Earth's lack of effort and courage did nothing to ease this sentiment. "I hope not," he said simply, clearly uncomfortable about the implications.

"So what do you think will happen to you once we return home?"

"We'll probably be assigned back to patrolling and assisting in various construction projects scattered about the Solar System. You?"

"The Partisans will most likely be debriefed by the higher ups and will probably be given more training on how to cause havoc and merry mayhem on the Ori. My guess is that they'll probably be serving as liaisons from the Pythian resistance to Expeditionary Command. Colonel Smythe was very adamant about increasing coordination with the Pythians as well as giving them access to more advanced weapons. You can only do so much with RPGs and AKs."

Somerville nodded politely.

"As for my team, we'll probably be taken off the active list and reflagged as a training unit until the replacements are up to snuff and we're ready to go back into the field again," O'Neill replied. Seeing the Captain's blank stare, he explained. "I lost half my team on Pythia."

"Bloody hell," remarked Somerville. To loose half of one's command was not a minor thing.

"Yeah," agreed O'Neill. "Colonel Smythe," he referred to the Commander of O'Neill's Special Operations Company and the senior Terran Officer on Pythia, "had us and the partisans running constant almost to point of daily attacks on the Ori in our local Area of Operations. We were able to get away with it for two full months, pulling off some of the craziest shit that you wouldn't believe before the odds finally caught up to us."

"Damn."

"Yeah. I'm proud to say that we were able to give out more than we received."

Somerville was about to reply when the handheld digital assistant device that he carried on his belt began to go off emitting a ping like sound. "My apologies but duty calls," he said, he had ordered the ship's computer to inform him five minutes from the time that the _Archer_ was due to exit hyperspace.

"Not a problem."

"It was nice talking to you. Enjoy your time on Earth."

"I will. I doubt that either of us will be sent back to the front anytime soon."

They couldn't be more wrong.

**CIC, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Sir thirty seconds to reversion to real space," reported Gonzalez.

Somerville nodded, silently acknowledging the Navigator's comment.

"Reverting to real space in five…four…three…two…one. We are now in real space. According to telemetry we are currently at the outer edge of our solar system."

"Excellent," Somerville replied. "Lieutenant Collins, transmit our authentication codes and our status via encrypted subspace channel immediately," he ordered his Communications Officer.

"Aye sir."

The Solar System was a very large place and unfortunately Earth had few Space based assets to patrol and secure its territory. The Navy only commissioned a handful of vessels and the Space Force's Sensor grid and Orbital Fortresses were still under construction.

In order to ensure that Earth was as secure as possible, HOMECOM had set a number of regulations aimed at protecting the Solar System. Any ship Terran or Allied wishing to enter the Solar System had to first emerge from hyperspace at the system's edge and identify itself and be cleared before being allowed access. Any ship that failed to do so would be treated as hostile and would be immediately fired upon.

A few minutes passed before the Communication's Officer spoke again. "Sir I'm receiving a reply."

"Thank you," Somerville replied. The ship's computer had immediately forwarded the message to his console in the CIC, deleting the copy from the ship's mailbox. Somerville quickly keyed his security code and began to read.

CAPTAIN'S EYES ONLY

TO: Captain Terrence Somerville, TFNS _Archer_

FROM: Admiral John Mackenzie, COMNAVHOME

Your identity has been confirmed

You are now clear to travel about the Solar System

Congratulations on a job well done

You are to dock at TFNB Marshall immediately

Further instructions will follow upon arrival

END MESSAGE

Somerville frowned after he finished reading. The message was short and to the point, typical of all Military Communications. While the first half of the message was nothing out of the ordinary, the last half indicated that something was up.

The few ships in the Navy's inventory were homeported at TFNB Yi in the 3rd Lagrange Point or L3 and as far as he knew was the only operational Naval Base in the Solar System. TFNB Marshall however was located at the very edge of the Solar System about as far away from the Sun as Pluto and as far as he knew was still in the early stages of construction. The fact that he was ordered to rendezvous with a not even half completed Naval Base at the edge of Terran Territory meant that something big was going down.

He sighed, what the hell was going on? It seemed as if he and his men were being dragged from one half-baked adventure to another.

He mentally shrugged. He wouldn't know until he and his crew arrived. He turned to Gonzalez, "set a course to these coordinates," he ordered transmitting the coordinates of TFNB Marshall to the Navigator's console.

The Navigator paused for a second, frowning as the coordinates were not what he had been expecting before replying, "aye sir."

**Conference Room, TFNB Marshall, Deep Space**

"Do you know what the bloody hell is going on Terrence?" whispered Captain Rodger Collingwood, the Captain of the TFNS _Active_, as well as a long time friend of Somerville.

"Not a clue," Somerville replied as sat in his seat alongside a number of his fellow Captains at the large oval table inside the compartment, waiting patiently for the briefing to begin.

The orders to report to TFNB Marshall were only the first of a series of revelations.

Immediately after exiting hyperspace Somerville had discovered that TFNB Marshall was not in the early stages of construction but instead was operational and farther along construction than TFNB Yi with a full wing of 72, six squadrons total of F-302 fighters to defend the facility.

Apparently TFNB Marshall, formerly known as Marshall Air Force Base had been under construction way before the founding of the Terran Federal Republic.

Upon commissioning the _Prometheus_, the IOA and the SGC had come to the agreement that with Earth's increasingly expanding Space assets it would be harder and harder to conceal them from the general public. A deep space facility stationed at the edge of the Solar System was needed to not only serve as a base of operations for the IOA's growing number of space based warships and fighters as well as a construction yard to construct additional warships without the prying eyes of the uninformed public. Construction had begun roughly around the same time as the completion of the Daedalus, the first BC-304 unit.

With the Ori Assault on Earth and the subsequent revelation of the Stargate program to the public Marshall Air Force Base had been renamed by the Terran Ministry of Defense as Terran Federal Naval Base Marshall with construction continuing albeit at a much faster pace now that things were out in the open.

Expeditionary Command had appropriated TFNB Marshall as its headquarters as it was not only located off world, close enough to Earth but far away that it was isolated from the general public, to decrease the odds of infiltration.

In addition, he had discovered that the _Archer_ was not the only ship ordered to report to TFNB Marshall. Evidently the rest of Stealth Squadron Two and all of Stealth Squadron Three were ordered to report to TFNB Marshall as well for reasons yet unknown.

"Attention on deck!" bellowed the Marine Sentry standing next to the hatch

Immediately Somerville and his fellow Captain's rose from their seats standing at attention.

The hatch opened, revealing Admiral John Mackenzie who had the dual role of Commander-In-Chief Expeditionary Command and Commander Terran Naval Expeditionary Forces

"As you were," the Admiral said, waving them down before taking his seat at the head of the table, the aides taking seats at his right and left.

Somerville and his fellow Captains sat back down.

"Before we start this meeting I would like to congratulate one of your number for a job well done. Captain Somerville will you please stand up."

Somerville obeyed, after all he no choice and quickly stood up.

"Captain Somerville and his crew were on a routine transport mission to Langara when the call came to extract a Special Operations Team and their indigenous allies from hostile territory. Captain Somerville was not only able to extract the Special Operations team safely but did so with no casualties and minimal damage to his vessel. For that I commend him."

"Thank you sir," Somerville said, he hated being in the limelight before sitting back down.

"Your welcome Captain," replied the Admiral. "Now that's out of the way, let's get down to business. Right now you're probably wondering why the hell you all are wondering why the hell you've been summoned and at this location none the less.

"The President has decided that due to conditions in the front lines, immediate reinforcement of Terran Military Forces is necessary to ease the burden on our allies. As such he has ordered the transfer of Stealth Squadrons Two and Three to Expeditionary Command and an immediate deployment to the front lines."

Gasps, exclamations and other verbal reactions echoed throughout the room.

The Admiral waited for the noise to subside and continued. "As such Expeditionary Command has ordered Operation Hidden Scythe to commence immediately.

The Admiral activated the holo projector in the middle of the table while his aides began to pass out sealed folders to each of the assembled Captains.

"This is the Alderan Sector and is primarily made up of pre-Industrial human societies, while it might not seem light much, it is home to the largest source of food for the Ori forces stationed in the Milky Way and thus has a high strategic value for the Ori War Effort in this Galaxy.

"The objective of Operation Hidden Scythe is to change that. Your mission is to deny the Ori the resources coming out of the Alderan Sector using any means possible. Luckily for us, the Ori are stretched thin, their forces spread across the Galaxy. Many of you back in the day have been trained to fight the last war and although the Cold War ended years ago, this time you finally get to do what you were trained for all those years ago. You gentlemen are going to become the new U-Boat Captains of the Twenty-First Century, carrying out quick strikes against enemy supply convoys, installations, and other targets of interest. You will strike fear into the hearts of every Ori follower from the lowest Peon to Adria herself. You will be the invisible wraiths that will stalk the void between the stars killing silently, swiftly and vanishing without a trace only to reappear at the worst possible moment to do it over again, again and again. The Ori have given us an opening and we are going to use that opening to strangle their war machine to a grinding halt.

"I won't lie to you, this won't be easy. To be perfectly honest with you gentlemen this Operation was originally slated for six months from now and with more ships committed for the operation. However, I can tell you that we are behind you one hundred percent.

"You will be given the best weapons, equipment and everything else that we can get our hands on to help you in your task, regardless of the cost. Gentlemen, the survival of Earth depends upon how much you can ravage the Alderan Sector. Are there any questions so far?"

"What is the force composition of the Ori forces in the area?" asked one Captain.

"The enemy forces in the local area of operations mainly consist of corvettes and frigates, with a few ships of the line in the area. Thanks to the Asgard, the Ori have been forced to devote most of their Battle Line to deal with them. However don't get your hopes up, the Ori outnumber you at least twenty to one. In order to be stay alive you're going to have to use hit and run tactics to wear down their numbers."

"What kind of new weapons and equipment are we talking about?" asked another Officer who by the sound of it wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"You all will be outfitted with a few of our weapons that are due begin mass production within the next six months to a year. I assure you that none of you will not be receiving anything that is half baked and still in the early stages in development."

"How long will we deployed in the area?"

"Right now I don't know. My guess is that you'll be deep in enemy territory for at least three to four months at the very least. However once we a get sufficient number of ships, we'll begin to rotate forces in Theater to relieve you."

"Any other questions?" the Admiral asked. Seeing that there was none, he continued. "All right you're all dismissed. Get ready to be deployed in twelve hours. Captain Somerville, please stay where you are."

"Good luck Terence," said Collingwood as both men got up.

"You too Rodger," replied Somerville, watching as his friend and his fellow Captains got out of their seats and exited the room, bound for their respective ships in preparation for the newly revealed deployment.

Now that he and the Admiral were alone, minus the Marine Sentry standing beside the hatch, the Admiral turned his attention to him once more. "Once again great job in the extraction," the older man told him.

"Thank you sir," Somerville replied, quietly.

The Admiral sighed, "Son a word of advice, if you ever want to be a Flag Officer I advise you to take credit for your accomplishments. Being modest is one thing but you not only have to stand out from the rest of your peers but be assertive as well if you ever hope to make Admiral. You've got the potential."

"Yes sir," Somerville replied, surprised. While it was not the first time that he had been chided for his introverted nature, this was the first time that he had been told that he was a possible candidate for Flag Rank.

"However despite the promise that you hold, that's not the reason why I asked you to stay behind." He turned to the Marine. "Send them in."

The hatch opened and shortly thereafter three men walked in, although only recognized O'Neill, attired in fresh Fatigue Uniform. It seemed that the powers that be had decided that he and the young Special Operations Officer would cross paths once again.

As for the other two men, one was in a middle-aged man wearing the Service Dress Uniform of the Special Operations Force, the rank insignia on his shoulders revealing him as a Lieutenant General. The other was a younger man, probably in his late thirties to early forties and wore a Green Nomex Flight suit that was popular with aviators worldwide, and if Somerville could see correctly was a Lieutenant Colonel.

"Captain Somerville I'd like to introduce you to General Frank Higgins, Commander Expeditionary Special Operations Forces."

"Nice to meet you Captain," the General shook Somerville's hand.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Michael Richardson, Terran Federal Space Force."

"A pleasure."

"And you know Captain O'Neill of course."

"Of course."

As the introductions were done, the assembled Officers took their seats at the table, leaving over two thirds of the seats still empty.

"As you obviously know, Operation Hidden Scythe is primarily composed of Naval Forces, and is a Navy-led operation, however both the General and myself have agreed that in order to be successful, will need additional forces, namely the ability to deploy Special Operations Forces in the Alderan Sector.

"As such the two of us have agreed that it would be in the best interest in the success of the Operation if Captain O'Neill and his team as well as a few additional ground Forces, including an Army Ranger Company en route at the moment be assigned to your vessel for the duration of the Operation."

"I have no problem with that sir," Somerville assured his superiors. Even if he did, there was probably nothing he could do about it.

"Good," replied the Admiral. "Colonel Richardson is the Commanding Officer of the First Special Operations Squadron (Experimental), consisting of three modified dropships for covert insertion and extraction and will also be joining your crew.

"Needless to say, due to the new additions to your vessel, you and your crew will be called to execute additional insertion and extraction missions on top of the raiding missions done by the rest of the ships assigned in the Operation. You're going to have a lot more responsibilities than the rest of your colleagues.

"Look son, if you don't think you can handle the additional burden this is your last chance to let me know now and I'll assign the O'Neill, Richardson and their men to another ship. The last thing I need is for you to accept the added responsibility and not be up for the task."

"No sir, I'm perfectly able to take the responsibility."

"Good. When this is all over, if you can walk the walk on this, I can guarantee you that you'll have some very good things waiting for you when you return home."

"Yes sir."

"Godspeed Captain," CINCEXPED said simply.

"Give 'em hell," said the General.

"Thank you sirs."

The two Officers quickly departed the room; Somerville no doubt knew that they had more pressing business to attend.

He turned his attention to O'Neill and the Colonel. "If you can follow me I'll take you to the _Archer_."

**Landing Bay, TFNS **_**Archer**_

"Beautiful aren't they?" said Colonel Richardson.

"Certainly," replied Somerville, admiring the three newly arrived spacecraft parked closely to one another inside the Archer's formerly vacant hangar. "What are they exactly?"

"These fine pieces of art are SDS-1 Wraiths manufactured by EADS, in fact the very first ones to roll off the assembly lines in Europe."

"SDS-1 Wraiths?" Somerville asked, confused.

"The SDS-1 Wraith is a variant of the DS-1 Cormorant specially designed for the insertion and extraction of Special Operations Forces as well as other covert operations," explained the Colonel.

"Although it's similar to the DS-1 the SDS-1 has a couple key differences from the original model.

"We've added a rapid fire energy cannon on the nose, allowing the crew to engage the enemy head on. The addition of the energy weapon with the addition of three GAU-19 .50 cal machine guns mounted on the port, starboard and at the aft sides allows us to provide fire support at any and all directions, perfect for a sudden assault or an extraction in a hot landing zone.

"Our avionics and other components are top of the line. The anti gravity engines used by the SDS-1 is twenty percent more powerful and provides much more thrust than those used on the DS-1. Our onboard flight computers have more RAM, faster processors and meet with the additional demands placed on it.

"What really sets this bird apart from the DS-1 is its ECM System. Its vastly superior to the system deployed aboard the DS-1 although very complex and personnel intensive to the point that the Wraith requires additional crew to operate it. While I can't go into specific detail about the system I can tell you that its similar to that used by your ship Captain."

Somerville nodded. It was one thing to know about the Dropships that this ship was to be using but another to pry into information that he didn't need to know about.

"Naturally with all of the improvements there is a price to pay. With the additional weaponry, improved ECM and avionics the Wraith's cargo carrying capacity is reduced by thirty five percent due. Another issue is the cost per unit. A single Wraith costs the same amount as a whole flight of Cormorants and is much harder to maintain. While this makes the Wraith very unattractive as a General Utility Transport it fits perfectly for the role that it was intended for, a Specialized Transport used for infiltration and extraction behind enemy lines."

"Ah," Somerville replied, not knowing what else there was to say.

"Would you like a tour of the interior?" asked the Colonel.

"It would be a pleasure."

**Storage Compartment 37B**

The room was cramped, designed for the storage of equipment and other materials rather than the housing of personnel, it was not the ideal dwelling for anyone even on board a Naval vessel.

However with the additional personnel and war material coming on board, and the lack of available living space the _Archer_'s Commanding Officer had no choice but to convert a number storage rooms into living quarters to house the newcomers.

Although in all due fairness he did do his best to make the accommodations as livable as possible. The crew had installed bunk beds by bolting them to the walls as well as improved the lighting by installing additional lights making it much easier to see. While he hadn't been able to install an additional bathroom close to their quarters at such short notice, he was able to requisition a few chemical toilets that were placed in the neighboring and smaller Storage Compartment 37A so his team and the Rangers wouldn't have to spend ten minutes walking to the bathroom every time they had to go. Although the conditions were rough according to Chaucer, himself a former member of the Special Boat Service, they were much better than sleeping in hammocks inside the _Archer_'s munitions bay.

"Okay everyone listen up," O'Neill addressed his team, "As you probably realize by now we're going to be going back into the frying pan once more."

He could hear a few muted groans coming from his team, who were not too happy about the change in events. He couldn't blame them, after all who liked being their dreams of R and R crushed with the news of an immediate redeployment into another war zone?

"Great," muttered Chaucer

"We've been assigned additional Operators to bring us back up to full strength," O'Neill replied, he too not liking the news very much. "Without further ado I'd like to welcome to you all our new additions."

A lean and wiry young man of Latin American descent raised his hand "Sergeant Marco Castaneda, Communications Specialist."

"Staff Sergeant Ruben Holstein, Heavy Weapons" said a burly man with a heavy Hebrew accent.

"First Sergeant Robert Douglass, Medic," replied a fair-haired man who was fast approaching middle age, in a twang often found in the Southern Regions of North America.

A dark haired man of Korean descent was the last to introduce himself, "Sergeant First Class Oh Seung, Intelligence."

"Welcome to ODA-1123 Gentlemen. I'd like to say that in addition to our new arrivals," O'Neill was careful not to use the word replacements, "Expeditionary Command has also allocated a Company of Army Rangers to support us in our upcoming deployment."

He paused for a moment before picking up a stack of folders and began to pass them out to everyone.

"Let me be frank and to the point," he said after passing out the folders. "I know that we're being sent out back to the front with little or no warning which isn't the best situation for anyone. For those of us who had just come back from Pythia, I'm sure that we're all _thrilled_ about the fact that, just after mere hours from escaping from the jaws of Death, we're being thrown back to the lion's den once more. And for those who have found themselves transferred to our Team, I don't think that any of you are happy about going into combat with a unit that you haven't even gotten to know.

"I know that this is probably the worst possible scenario but we can't do anything to change that. But what we can do is to make the best of what we've got. Let's get started with this briefing, open the folders and turn to page one…"

**CIC TFNS **_**Archer**_**, Deep Space, Sol System**

"Sir," reported Gonzalez, "we're clear to go to hyperspace."

"The _Audacious_ is now clear as well," reported Collins. "Commodore Li wants the Squadron to jump in three zero seconds."

"Start up the hyperdrive," ordered Somerville.

"Ayes sir," replied Molotov from the reactor room via the ship's internal communications system.

"Hyperspace window forming. Jump to hyperspace forming in ten…five…four…three…two…one."


End file.
